Collected Poems 1947-1997 - Ginsberg Allen - Страница 108

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                         nods goodbye girl

Humm, Macdougal I lived here,

          Humm, perfect, there’s empty space

               Park by the bright-lit bookstore—

          Where I’ll find my mail

          & Harmonium, new from Calcutta

Waiting I come back to New York & begin to Sing.

March 1966

Growing Old Again

The delicate french girl jukebox husky lament

softens the air over checkered tablecloths

I haven’t been in Kettle of Fish a year

Between my Moscows and Wichitas a lonesome moment

Content to gaze at Bodenheim & Gould in garish oil,

Phantoms I’m not over the bar wall mirroring photos

of old habitues renowned characteristic seasons for lack

of immortality, a bunch of provincial drunks fucked up

D.T. unbearables or Mafia brothers-in-law.

Old charm of anonymity, phonograph memory playing

familiar bar tunes infrequent visited much

once real hotspot cops on telephone me drunk loved

some heart friend image money at same table same

prophecy felt immortal then—now come true sit

decade hence jukebox-dazed an Angel remembered to forget.

March 3, 1966

Uptown

Yellow-lit Budweiser signs over oaken bars,

“I’ve seen everything”—the bartender handing me change of $10,

I stared at him amiably eyes thru an obvious Adamic beard—

with Montana musicians homeless in Manhattan, teenage

curly hair themselves—we sat at the antique booth & gossiped,

Madame Grady’s literary salon a curious value in New York—

“If I had my way I’d cut off your hair and send you to Vietnam”—

“Bless you then” I replied to a hatted thin citizen hurrying to the barroom door

upon wet dark Amsterdam Avenue decades later—

“And if I couldn’t do that I’d cut your throat” he snarled farewell,

and “Bless you sir” I added as he went to his fate in the rain, dapper Irishman.

April 1966

The Old Village Before I Die

Entering Minetta’s soft yellow chrome, to the acrid bathroom

22 years ago a gold kid wrote “human-kindness” contrasting

“humankind-ness” on enamel urinal where Crane’s match skated—

Christmas subway, lesbian slacks, friend bit someone’s earlobe off

tore gold ring from queer ear, weeping, vomited—

My first drunk nite flashed here, Joe Gould’s beard gray

(“a professional bore” said Bill cruelly)—but as I was less than twenty,

New scene rayed eternal—caricatures of ancient comedians

framed over checkertabled booths, first love struck my heart heavy

prophecy of this moment I looked in the urinal mirror returning decades

late same heavy honey in heart—bearded hairy bald with age

Soft music Smoke gets in your eyes Michele Show Me the Way to Go to Jail

from stereophonic jukebox that once echoed You Always Hurt The One You Love as dear Jack

did know under portraits of Al Smith, Jimmy Walker, Jimmy Durante, Billy Rose.

May 11, 1966

Consulting I Ching Smoking Pot Listening to the Fugs Sing Blake

That which pushes upward

                    does not come back

He led me in his garden

                         tinkle of 20 year phonograph

               Death is icumen in

                    and mocks my loss of liberty

One must see the Great Man

               Fear not it brings blessing

                              No Harm

                    from the invisible world

Perseverance

               Realms beyond

                              Stoned

in the deserted city

                    which lies below consciousness

June 1966

Zigzag Back Thru These States

(1966–1967)

Wings Lifted over the Black Pit

City Flats, Coal yards and brown rivers

      Tower groups toyed by silver bridge

               Sudden the snake uncoils

      w/ thousands of little bodies riding granite scales

      looped in approach to Geo. Washington’s steel trestle

          roped to Jersey west

      Blue sunray on air heights, bubbled with thick steam

                         roofing the planet—

          The jet plane glides toward Chicago.

Blue ground lands, chill cabin, white wings

          Stretch over mist-ribboned horizon

      small windows let in half moon

          a silver jet hangs in the sky south

      Brown gas of the City wrapped over hills—

Chanting Mantras all the way

      Hare Krishna etc.

          Till dinner, great Lake below,

Heard a sweet drone in the plane-whine

      Hari Om Namo Shivaye—So

Made my own music

      American Mantra—

          “Peace in Chicago,

          Peace in Saigon—”

Raw orange sunset, & plunging in white cloud-shore

      Floated thru vast fog-waves

                    down to black Chicago bottom

O’Hare Field’s runway’s blue insect lights on Winged Machinery

      Ozark Airways zoom up toward the Moon

Square Networks bulb-lit

      Twinkling blocks massed toward horizon

               Kremlin’d with red towers,

      Aethereal cloverleafs’ pinpointed circlets,

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