Collected Poems 1947-1997 - Ginsberg Allen - Страница 256
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arranged this antique shop, so practical
for display as Bed-and-Breakfast wayfarer’s
stop-over & lampshade collector’s twee daydream—
Yet it was a modern commercial establishment
we’d entered casually on our own road
through Maryland to see our lawyer in D.C.—
One attendant who observed us admiring his home
appointments watched us turn to go—
I wished to make a speech: “Congratulations
on your work of Ahrt, your antique care
& delicate intelligence, as if Messrs. McDermott
& McGough photographed the 1880s entire
& built it in 3-D renewed at millennium’s end—”
So I orated on but the attendants conferred,
minds elsewhere, only one scion of the house
moon-faced thirtysomething sat legs spread
on the fake stairway & applauded our appreciation
& delight—& so we left to go, our party
on its way to the postmodern Capital.
August 31, 1992
News Stays News
Diana & Roger Napoleon’s real estate empire
extended up to the Napoleon Castle Hotel’s penthouse
stainless steel & gold doorknobs bathtubs bars & windowsills
But Roger got Alzheimer’s & couldn’t keep his money books straight
Diana went to jail for back taxes & cheating at cards
Lost control of her castle, lawyers ate her Empire
She got sick & spent years maintaining her body,
skin growths, liver failure, kidney disturbances, upset stomach
But the castle of flesh ceased to function
She was left inside with her soul.
What is that? Where will it go? Who am I?
asked Napoleon in bed, eyes closing for the last time on St. Helena.
September 7, 1992, 3:00 P.M.
Autumn Leaves
At 66 just learning how to take care of my body
Wake cheerful 8 A.M. & write in a notebook
rising from bed side naked leaving a naked boy asleep by the wall
mix miso mushroom leeks & winter squash breakfast,
Check bloodsugar, clean teeth exactly, brush, toothpick, floss, mouthwash
oil my feet, put on white shirt white pants white sox
sit solitary by the sink
a moment before brushing my hair, happy not yet
to be a corpse.
September 13, 1992, 9:50 A.M.
In the Benjo
To G.S.
Reading No Nature in the toilet
Sitting down, absorbed
page after page, forgetting
time, forgetting my bottom
relax, detritus
flopping out into water
—better than pushing and squeezing,
nervous, self-conscious—
better forget and read a book,
let your behind take care of itself
better than hemorrhoids, a good volume
of poetry.
October 23, 1992, 11:00 A.M.
American Sentences
Tompkins Square Lower East Side N.Y.
Four skinheads stand in the streetlight rain chatting under an umbrella.
1987
* * *
Bearded robots drink from Uranium coffee cups on Saturn’s ring.
May 1990
* * *
On Hearing the Muezzin Cry Allah Akbar While Visiting the Pythian Oracle at Didyma Toward the End of the Second Millennium
At sunset Apollo’s columns echo with the bawl of the One God.
* * *
Crescent moon, girls chatter at twilight on the busride to Ankara.
* * *
The weary Ambassador waits relatives late at the supper table.
* * *
To be sucking your thumb in Rome by the Tiber among fallen leaves …
June 1990
* * *
Rainy night on Union Square, full moon. Want more poems? Wait till I’m dead.
August 8, 1990, 3:30 A.M.
* * *
Approaching Seoul by Bus in Heavy Rain
Get used to your body, forget you were born, suddenly you got to get out!
August 1990
* * *
Put on my tie in a taxi, short of breath, rushing to meditate.
November 1991
New York
* * *
Taxi ghosts at dusk pass Monoprix in Paris 20 years ago.
* * *
The young stud who dreamt I “dick’d his ass” asked me to take him to supper.
* * *
Two blocks from his hotel in a taxi the fat Lama punched out his mugger.
* * *
I can still see Neal’s 23-year-old corpse when I come in my hand.
January 1992
Amsterdam
* * *
Naropa Hot Tub
The ocean is full of naked young boys and Neptune-bearded old men.
July 1992
* * *
He stands at the church steps a long time looking down at new white sneakers—
Determined, goes in the door quickly to make his Sunday confession.
September 21, 1992
* * *
The midget albino entered the hairy limousine to pipi.
September 25, 1992
Modesto
* * *
That grey-haired man in business suit and black turtleneck thinks he’s still young.
December 19, 1992
Notes
These reference notes may be of use to younger readers & translators not familiar with ephemeral news situations or translated & esoteric texts.
Title page epigraph
Section 2, “Discussion on Making All Things Equal,” Chuang Tzu Basic Writings, trans. Burton Watson (New York: Columbia University Press, 1964), p. 42.
(p. 937) Improvisation in Beijing
Discourse at Chinese Writers Association conference with American Academy of Arts and Letters on “Sources of Inspiration,” Beijing, October 1984. Improvised from notes, transcribed from tape, lightly edited.
(p. 941) Prologue: Visiting Father & Friends
See “At the Grave of My Father,” Louis Ginsberg, Collected Poems, ed. Michael Fournier, Introduction Eugene Brooks, Afterword Allen Ginsberg (Orono, Maine: Northern Lights, 1992).
(p. 947) On the Conduct of the World
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