Collected Poems 1947-1997 - Ginsberg Allen - Страница 205

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623 COMMENTARY: American highbrow crypto-Zionist right-wing ideological journal edited by ambitious early prose critic of Kerouac’s poetic prose, later hawkish proponent of military hard-line hardware equated as alternative discipline for supposed loose 1960s national morals including public acknowledgment of gaiety.

623 PALESTINE REVIEW: Pro-Palestinian journal.

624 SHEMA YISROEL ADONOI ELUHENU: End of Hebrew chant: “Rejoice, O Israel, the Lord is one, the Lord is God.”

624 LA ILAH …: Sufi chant: “There is no god but Allah.”

624 HU: Sufi mantric out-breath.

624 SHALOM! SHANTIH! SALAAM!: Hebrew, Sanskrit, Arabic for “Peace!”

Sad Dust Glories

627 KENJI MYAZAWA: 20th-century Japanese poet, trans. Gary Snyder among others.

628 SHOBO-AN: Japanese Soto temple reconstructed by San Francisco Zen Center in California Sierras adjacent to Kitkitdizze “Ring of Bone” Zen Practice Center.

628 ACORN PEOPLE: Sierra Indian diet staple was acorn mush.

Ego Confessions

(1974–1977)

Ego Confession

631 GYALWA KARMAPA: 16th lama head of Milarepa lineage, Kagyu order of Tibetan Buddhism.

631 WEATHERMEN GOT NO MOSCOW GOLD: Timothy Leary, held incommunicado for years, early 1970’s, by Feds, refused to testify falsely that Weathermen were directed by Moscow finance. FBI heads were later convicted of illegal wiretapping since no evidence that antiwar protesters were agents of foreign powers could be found.

631 VAJRASATTVA: Central image of Nyingma old-school Tibetan meditation practice, blue-bodied, with diamond-lightning bolt (vajra) form held in right hand at breast, bell (ghanta) of empty (open) space held at left hip. Dharmakaya Buddha.

631 OVERTHREW THE CIA WITH A SILENT THOUGHT: Refers to 1970 Georgetown dinner bet between author and then CIA chief Richard Helms: whether or not Central Intelligence Agency had working relationship with opium traffickers at “secret” CIA base, Long Cheng, Laos. Author offered his vajra, if misinformed, and requested CIA Director Helms to practice meditation an hour a day for life if his denial proved incorrect. The wager was accepted, a bet either party might profit from by losing. Note also:

The New York Times

3 rue Scribe

75 Paris 9e

Apr. 11 1978

Dear Allen,

I fear I owe you an apology. I have been reading a succession of pieces about CIA involvement in the dope trade in Southeast Asia and I remember when you first suggested I look into this I thought you were full of beans. Indeed you were right and I acknowledge the fact plus sending my best personal wishes.

C. L. Sulzberger

Who Runs America?

636 GENERAL MOTORS … STANDARD OF CALIFORNIA: The dozen corporations name-dropped herein are top twelve capital powers whose $133 billion sales represented a tenth the total gross national product one yearly trillion $. Traditionally, an oil corporation representative fills post of U.S. Secy of State and auto corporation representative fills Secretary of Defense post. This gossip’s source was conversation with Daniel Ellsberg & Gary Snyder, November 26, 1974, re: Douglas F. Dowd’s The Twisted Dream, Capitalist Development in the United States Since 1776, 2nd ed. (Cambridge: Winthrop, 1977).

Thoughts on a Breath

637 FOUR YEARS AG O: Poem is sequel to “Guru Om,” October 4–6, 1970.

637 STONY BURNS: “After being arrested twice on pornography charges, then convicted for inciting riot, Stony Burns, art director and founder of Iconoclast and Dallas Notes [underground newspapers], was sentenced in Dallas to ten years and one day in prison for the possession of less than one tenth of an ounce of marijuana. The extra day in the sentence prevented eligibility for parole. Within a year, public protest freed editor Burns.”—Unamerican Activities: The Campaign Against the Underground Press, PEN American Center report, ed. Geoffrey Rips, foreword by Allen Ginsberg (San Francisco: City Lights, 1981); see pp. 102, 107–8. The poem was written when Stony Burns was first jailed, 1974.

Hospital Window

642 (MAYAGUEZ CRISIS): After U.S. withdrawal from Indochina war, the U.S. merchant ship Mayaguez, presumed to be spy ship, was taken by Cambodians near their coast in 1975. The ship was recaptured by U.S. with giant force, some loss of life, large headlines. The incident was argued at the time to symbolize U.S. resolve to “be perceived” still as “number one” in world might.

Hadda Be Playing on the Jukebox

643 BIG TIME SYNDICATE TAMPA: Sam Giancana and John Roselli, associated with Tampa mob chief, engaged by CIA to assassinate Cuban Premier Castro in “turf war,” early ’60s. Both were murdered or “rubbed out” prior to scheduled testimony before Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, chaired by late Senator Frank Church, 1965, re CIA assassination attempts against Castro. Roselli was found in barrel in ocean; Giancana was shot in his kitchen.

643 LET LUCKY LUCIANO OUT OF JAIL …: The international organized crime chief was released from federal prison by wartime Office of Strategic Services to supplant influence of Communist partisan anti-Hitler underground in Sicily with Mafia political infrastructure. According to American authorities, Luciano later became Mediterranean narcotics overlord. See “I’m Glad the CIA Is Immoral,” Thomas W. Braden, Saturday Evening Post, May 20, 1967, p. 14.

644 CHILE’S RED DEMOCRACY …: Salvador Allende (1908–1973), first democratically elected Marxist-socialist head of state in the western hemisphere, was deposed by U.S.-trained generals’ junta, 1973. Subsequent Senate investigation revealed that CIA funds were used to organize destabilizing truck transport strikes, to penetrate Santiago’s daily newspaper Mercurio, and to arrange “housewife demonstrations” against the new Allende government. Well-dressed family ladies walked in the streets, and banged on pots and pans, conveying an impression of normal people spontaneously protesting Allende government’s socialist austerities. The night after the U.S.-backed generals’ assault on presidential palace and assassination of Allende, the author remembers watching the TV screen with his father while news commentator Victor Riesel energetically congratulated American viewers: “The CIA was not involved!”

644 NKVD: People’s Commissariat for Internal Affairs—Soviet secret police.

644 OGPU: 1930s Russian secret police.

644 DIA: U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency.

644 KGB: Soviet Committee of State Security, equivalent to U.S. FBI, but worse.

Come All Ye Brave Boys

645 LIDS: Lid, a quantity of marijuana, equivalent to an ounce, originally a Prince Albert tobacco can full.

Gospel Noble Truths

649 YOU GOT TO SUFFER: First stanza refers to Buddhist doctrine of three “marks” or characteristics of existence: (1) suffering, (2) change, (3) Anatma (no permanent selfhood). Stanzas 1–3 refer to the Four Noble Truths of Buddhist philosophy: (1) Existence contains suffering; (2) Suffering is caused by ignorance; (3) Ignorance can be changed by practice of detachment, wisdom and compassion (4) and by following an eightfold path as paraphrased in song lines 13–20: (1) right views, (2) right aspiration, (3) right speech, (4) right activity, (5) right labor, (6) right energy, (7) right mindfulness, (8) right meditation. There follows brief instruction for sitting and review of six sense fields.

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