Collected Poems 1947-1997 - Ginsberg Allen - Страница 175

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seeking to answer the Text! old man of Love I give you my virgin mind—

You read my youthful Beauty, tender lip and merry eye or Changeling glance

and love you think this silken muscular body, red hair even-parted curling round my skull—

Sir I do love you, but hate this earth and myself in it and the ignorance

creeping in this house! Sir I do love your beard which you know is Beautiful to me,

as beardless my tender-muscled abdomen to you: But my Beauty you love most

is that of the aethereal Changeling of Poesy, the same I love in you

which Frightens you; then know yourself slave of Immortality, Master of Unearthly Beauty

nothing less, not God nor Empty Gurus of Thibet not Meditation’s quiet starlit hour

nor aching prostration to the Dharma King nor realms of human poetry

washed at your doorstep everymorn by the sea, stamp’d with gold sand dollars

licked by scummy wavelets, nor all the old beloved ghost boys dead

made famous by your Immortality. Here’s rotten Fish, Leviathan honor stinks your shore!

and makes this hermit house no more habitable! Leave your wordy life behind!

Chase the Last Beauty with me till we find the author, even if we enter Death Trance with ’im,

rise & gather your Sea gold, all your grassy Emeralds & champagne Amber hidden safe

Under the rune stone at the Hearth Yes Sir your Sparkling diamond treasury

I dreamed it well! Clear Sapphires blue as ice you see in sky! And hoarded rubies

red & multitudinous enough to make Each maiden and each boy on earth blush red with genius joy!

Naked! Naked! rise with me take all your Secrets in the air, the Sun’s at height, the morning’s ope’d blue sky,

Grandfather Clocks bong noon in oriental Carpet living-rooms in the Capital!

Close the stone door behind you, close this tomb lest gulls that swim the sea air

pluck the blind eyes of this lion out of its straw-brained head! Come out horrid Corpse!

But memorize the rune before we go, it’ll encompass our lov’d wanderings!

As Dante had his Virgil & as Blake his own Miltonic Fiend, I your Cherub & Punk Idol

’ll be Companion of th’ Aethereal Ways till we discover of the Secret Eidolon

What Beauteous Paradise is spelled, & what the Speller of the Stanza was

Who chiseled his unearthly riddle on this floor before I was born.”

The old bard trembled pale, at last his heart grew cold, composed to hear the fair youth raving

thru Hells and Heavens, paradise on his red lips, tricking, ravening Commanding,

hissing words half-cursed half prayers! Rending the breathing blue-green globe apart

in Vanity for what is not, aethereal Death and Life, while Love and sorrow ache

in the breast of the living moment under living skin, breath thrilled with sigh,

great Death & Life together One & love but a soul Aware,

For mind in heart is one with the body, Truth is the Depth of that,

and Poetry the Groan of Body lost in the Grave, for Thought is the love of Earth.

“I knew this Rune once long ago, cold Demon inspired kid, bright boy—

thank you for discovering it me again, ’twas meant for you to read in Dreams

and find at your own bare foot one day. I hardly visioned to be here when you came

naked maddened with delight into my room, demanding I respect your lips & loins.

Listen now, my turn to tell the story of a day when I was young as you,

Was in this room, for I was here lone witness to the Stranger, Alien, Wanderer,

Caller of the Great Call, Serpent minded Messenger that came like yourself

Naked from Beauty to Beauty. He came in the door as you did, but no one was home

to greet him, make fire to shine on runes or warm him in beds of Power, Wrath and

Meditation, Service or Tenderness. Nor was Sea gold gathered No nor any rhymed

or unrhymed Rune, not in this house on America’s Eastern Shore.

Some house was here before, but broken down a Century Past, & Uninhabitable.

I gathered icy diamonds in the salt sea, plucked the blue eye of the whale for wisdom,

Green emeralds I found in the growing grass and on tree boughs in their Springtime buds,

For thirty years enriched with witty penury I gathered Amber from the generous laurel

and Rubies rolled out of my heart. I threw away the Pearl, back to the sea

To keep God out of trouble under his blue wet blanket, and be done

with clammy envy and his watery blisses and grasping waves.

I brought the shining fire tongs here from Bardic Mannahatta, & the Red Porphyry Chair of Poetry

from the Ind. I set it beside the hearth and built a fire out of seawracked thrones of wooden kings

I found on the illuminated shore, and lay down on my belly in my healthy youth

and Carved your Beauteous riddle on this bedrock basalt floor with the tooth of an Angel

I imagined one night for Company in Meditation; & Pushed this red porphyry seat

smooth over that Mantric Rune with a Prayer to my visible & invisible teachers—

Beloved Stranger, Naked Beauty, terrible Eidolon O my youth I never dreamt that you would come.”

Washington, January 22, 1977, 3 A.M.–11:30 AM.

III

EPILOGUE

THE ARGUMENT: Last words spoken by the bard to the boy on a train between Washington and NY.

“Some day when we surrender to each other and become One friend,

we’ll walk back to this hermitage, returned from America

thru Cities and Bars and Smoking Factories & State Capitols

Universities, Crowds, Parks and Highways, returned from glass-glittering shrines

& diamond skyscrapers whose windows gleam sunset wealth Golden & Purple,

White & Red & Blue as Clouds that reflect Smog thru Western heavens.

Back here in our bodies we may renew these studies & labors

of Iron & Feather, dream copybooks, & waking Levitation of heavy Mind.

Now still bodied separate in Vanity & minded contrary each in’s Phantasy

only Poetry’s Prophetic beauty Transports us on one Train back to households

in our north Vast City connected with telephones and buses. We may trip out

again into Hidden Beauty, Hearts beating thru the world’s Mills & Wires, Radiant

at Television Noon or on Ecstatic midnite bed with broken bone or body Forgetfulness.

Now we go from our Chambered Cranium forth thru Strangeness:

Careful to respect our Heart, mindful of Beauty’s slow working Calm Machine,

Cigarette Vending Contraption or neon yellow Sun its face to your face—

All faces different, all forms present a Face to look into with Care:

The College boy his ignorant snub nose is a button whereon Sexual mercies

Press their lusty thumbs & wake his studious energy. The grey hair’d dirty

Professor of history’s sought thru ages to find that Country where Love’s face is King,

While the Care on his face is King of Centuries. And thoughts in his mind are

Presidents elected by fresh nerves every seven years to pass new laws of Consciousness.

Each Maple waits our gaze erecting tricky branches in the air we breathe.

Nothing is stupid but thought, & all thought we think’s our own.

My face you’ve seen palsied bearded White & Changing energies

from Slavelike lust to snowy emptiness, bald Anger to fishy-eyed prophecy,

Your voice you’ve heard naked and hard commanding arrogant, pale dandied

in a fit of Burgundy Pique, Childlike delighted fingers twisting my beard

on Lion coverlets in caves far from the Iron Domed Capitol,

Intelligent deciphering runes yours and mine, dreamed & undreamt.

Plebeian Prince of the Suburb, I return to my eastern office pleased with our work

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