Collected Poems 1947-1997 - Ginsberg Allen - Страница 18
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Bare elements of Solitude: table, chair & clock;
Two books on top of the bedspread, Jack Woodford and Paul de Kock.
I sat down at the table & read a holy book
About a super City whereon I cannot look.
What misery to be guided to an eternal clime
When I yearn for sixty minutes of actual time.
I turned on the Radio voices strong and clear
described the high fidelity of a set without a peer.
Then I heard great musicians playing the Mahogany Hall
Up to the last high chorus. My neighbor beat on the wall.
I looked up at the Calendar it had a picture there
Showing two pairs of lovers and all had golden hair.
I looked into the mirror to check my worst fears.
My face is dark but handsome It has not loved for years.
I lay down with the paper to see what Time had wrought:
Peace was beyond vision, war too much for thought.
Only the suffering shadow of Dream Driven Boy, 16
Looked in my eyes from the Centerfold after murdering High School Queen.
I stripped, my head on the pillow eyes on the cracked blue wall.
The same cockroach or another continued its upward crawl.
From what faint words, what whispers did I lie alone apart?
What wanted consummation? What sweetening of the heart?
I wished that I were married to a sensual thoughtful girl.
I would have made a wedded workmanlike tender churl.
I wished that I were working for $10,000 a year.
I looked all right in business suits but my heart was weak with fear.
I wished I owned an apartment uptown on the East Side,
So that my gentle breeding nurtured, had not died.
I wished I had an Aesthetic worth its weight in gold.
The myth is still unwritten. I am getting old.
I closed my eyes and drifted back in helpless shame
To jobs & loves wasted Disillusion itself was lame.
I closed my eyes and drifted the shortening years ahead,
Walk home from the movies lone long nights in bed,
Books, plays, music, spring afternoons in bars,
The smell of old Countries, the smoke of dark cigars.
February 1952
[According to biographer Bill Morgan, the actual address where this poem was written was 346 West 15th Street.—The Allen Ginsberg Trust, May 2006]
A Crazy Spiritual
A faithful youth
with artificial legs
drove his jalopy
through the towns of Texas.
He got sent out
of the Free Hospital
of Galveston, madtown
on the Gulf of Mexico
after he recovered.
They gave him a car
and a black mongrel;
name was Weakness.
He was a thin kid
with golden hair
and a frail body
on wire thighs,
who never traveled
and drove northward
timid on the highway
going about twenty.
I hitched a hike
and showed him the road.
I got off at Small Town
and stole his dog.
He tried to drive away,
but lost control,
rode on the pavement
near a garage,
and smashed his doors
and fenders on trees
and parked cars,
and came to a halt.
The Marshal came,
stopping everything
pulled him out
of the wreck cursing.
I watched it all
from the lunch cart,
holding the dog
with a frayed rope.
“I’m on my own
from the crazyhouse.
Has anybody
seen my Weakness?”
What are they saying?
“Call up the FBI.
Crazy, ha? What
is he a fairy?
He must do funny
things with women,
we bet he * * *
them in the * * *.”
Poor child meanwhile
collapsed on the ground
with innocent expression
is trying to get up.
Along came a Justice
of the Supreme Court,
barreling through town
in a blue limousine.
He stopped by the crowd
to find out the story,
got out on his pegleg
with an angry smile.
“Don’t you see
he has no legs?
That’s you fools
what crazy means.”
He picked the boy
up off the ground.
The dog ran to them
from the lunch cart.
He put them both in
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