Written by
Allen Ginsberg |
At gauzy dusk, thin haze like cigarette smoke
ribbons past Chrysler Building's silver fins
tapering delicately needletopped, Empire State's
taller antenna filmed milky lit amid blocks
black and white apartmenting veil'd sky over Manhattan,
offices new built dark glassed in blueish heaven--The East
50's & 60's covered with castles & watertowers, seven storied
tar-topped house-banks over York Avenue, late may-green trees
surrounding Rockefellers' blue domed medical arbor--
Geodesic science at the waters edge--Cars running up
East River Drive, & parked at N.Y. Hospital's oval door
where perfect tulips flower the health of a thousand sick souls
trembling inside hospital rooms. Triboro bridge steel-spiked
penthouse orange roofs, sunset tinges the river and in a few
Bronx windows, some magnesium vapor brilliances're
spotted five floors above E 59th St under grey painted bridge
trestles. Way downstream along the river, as Monet saw Thames
100 years ago, Con Edison smokestacks 14th street,
& Brooklyn Bridge's skeined dim in modern mists--
Pipes sticking up to sky nine smokestacks huge visible--
U.N. Building hangs under an orange crane, & red lights on
vertical avenues below the trees turn green at the nod
of a skull with a mild nerve ache. Dim dharma, I return
to this spectacle after weeks of poisoned lassitude, my thighs
belly chest & arms covered with poxied welts,
head pains fading back of the neck, right eyebrow cheek
mouth paralyzed--from taking the wrong medicine, sweated
too much in the forehead helpless, covered my rage from
gorge to prostate with grinding jaw and tightening anus
not released the weeping scream of horror at robot Mayaguez
World self ton billions metal grief unloaded
Pnom Penh to Nakon Thanom, Santiago & Tehran.
Fresh warm breeze in the window, day's release
>from pain, cars float downside the bridge trestle
and uncounted building-wall windows multiplied a mile
deep into ash-delicate sky beguile
my empty mind. A seagull passes alone wings
spread silent over roofs.
- May 20, 1975 Mayaguez Crisis
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Written by
Walt Whitman |
NATIONS ten thousand years before These States, and many times ten thousand years before
These
States;
Garner’d clusters of ages, that men and women like us grew up and travel’d their
course, and pass’d on;
What vast-built cities—what orderly republics—what pastoral tribes and nomads;
What histories, rulers, heroes, perhaps transcending all others;
What laws, customs, wealth, arts, traditions;
What sort of marriage—what costumes—what physiology and phrenology;
What of liberty and slavery among them—what they thought of death and the soul;
Who were witty and wise—who beautiful and poetic—who brutish and
undevelop’d;
Not a mark, not a record remains—And yet all remains.
O I know that those men and women were not for nothing, any more than we are for nothing;
I know that they belong to the scheme of the world every bit as much as we now belong to
it,
and as all will henceforth belong to it.
Afar they stand—yet near to me they stand,
Some with oval countenances, learn’d and calm,
Some naked and savage—Some like huge collections of insects,
Some in tents—herdsmen, patriarchs, tribes, horsemen,
Some prowling through woods—Some living peaceably on farms, laboring, reaping,
filling
barns,
Some traversing paved avenues, amid temples, palaces, factories, libraries, shows, courts,
theatres, wonderful monuments.
Are those billions of men really gone?
Are those women of the old experience of the earth gone?
Do their lives, cities, arts, rest only with us?
Did they achieve nothing for good, for themselves?
I believe of all those billions of men and women that fill’d the unnamed lands, every
one
exists this hour, here or elsewhere, invisible to us, in exact proportion to what he or
she
grew from in life, and out of what he or she did, felt, became, loved, sinn’d, in
life.
I believe that was not the end of those nations, or any person of them, any more than this
shall be the end of my nation, or of me;
Of their languages, governments, marriage, literature, products, games, wars, manners,
crimes,
prisons, slaves, heroes, poets, I suspect their results curiously await in the yet unseen
world—counterparts of what accrued to them in the seen world.
I suspect I shall meet them there,
I suspect I shall there find each old particular of those unnamed lands.
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Written by
Dejan Stojanovic |
I imagined I was a mountain
Then I became a cloud over that mountain
Lightning and thunder pummeled the mountain
Pierced the heart of the earth,
Becoming lava and exploding as a volcano.
I imagined I was a star
Light traveling into space
Then I grew as a tree
With leaves of galaxies eating the light
Becoming the angel of life and the bearer of light.
I imagined I was a black hole
Flying through myself and swallowing myself
While eating others to consume the abyss of energy
But still, holding the whole galaxy in order
Keeping billions of stars circling around me.
I imagined I was God for a millisecond
And became speechless for a long time.
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Written by
Walt Whitman |
WHO learns my lesson complete?
Boss, journeyman, apprentice—churchman and atheist,
The stupid and the wise thinker—parents and offspring—merchant, clerk, porter
and
customer,
Editor, author, artist, and schoolboy—Draw nigh and commence;
It is no lesson—it lets down the bars to a good lesson,
And that to another, and every one to another still.
The great laws take and effuse without argument;
I am of the same style, for I am their friend,
I love them quits and quits—I do not halt, and make salaams.
I lie abstracted, and hear beautiful tales of things, and the reasons of things;
They are so beautiful, I nudge myself to listen.
I cannot say to any person what I hear—I cannot say it to myself—it is very
wonderful.
It is no small matter, this round and delicious globe, moving so exactly in its orbit
forever
and ever, without one jolt, or the untruth of a single second;
I do not think it was made in six days, nor in ten thousand years, nor ten billions of
years,
Nor plann’d and built one thing after another, as an architect plans and builds a
house.
I do not think seventy years is the time of a man or woman,
Nor that seventy millions of years is the time of a man or woman,
Nor that years will ever stop the existence of me, or any one else.
Is it wonderful that I should be immortal? as every one is immortal;
I know it is wonderful, but my eyesight is equally wonderful, and how I was conceived in
my
mother’s womb is equally wonderful;
And pass’d from a babe, in the creeping trance of a couple of summers and winters, to
articulate and walk—All this is equally wonderful.
And that my Soul embraces you this hour, and we affect each other without ever seeing each
other, and never perhaps to see each other, is every bit as wonderful.
And that I can think such thoughts as these, is just as wonderful;
And that I can remind you, and you think them, and know them to be true, is just as
wonderful.
And that the moon spins round the earth, and on with the earth, is equally wonderful,
And that they balance themselves with the sun and stars, is equally wonderful.
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Written by
Dejan Stojanovic |
From where do simplicity and ease
In the movement of heavenly bodies derive?
It is precision.
Sun is never late to rise upon the Earth,
Moon is never late to cause the tides,
Earth is never late to greet the Sun and the Moon;
Thus accidents are not accidents
But precise arrivals at the wrong right time.
Love is almost never simple;
Too often, feelings arrive too soon,
Waiting for thoughts that often come too late.
I wanted too, to be simple and precise
Like the Sun,
Like the Moon,
Like the Earth
But the Earth was booked
Billions of years in advance;
Designed to meet all desires,
All arrivals, all sunrises, all sunsets,
All departures,
So I will have to be a little bit late.
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Written by
Thomas Moore |
My banks are all furnished with rags,
So thick, even Freddy can't thin 'em;
I've torn up my old money-bags,
Having little or nought to put in 'em.
My tradesman are smashing by dozens,
But this is all nothing, they say;
For bankrupts, since Adam, are cousins,
So, it's all in the family way.
My Debt not a penny takes from me,
As sages the matter explain; --
Bob owes it to Tom and then Tommy
Just owes it to Bob back again.
Since all have thus taken to owing,
There's nobody left that can pay;
And this is the way to keep going, --
All quite in the family way.
My senators vote away millions,
To put in Prosperity's budget;
And though it were billions or trillions,
The generous rogues wouldn't grudge it.
'Tis all but a family hop,
'Twas Pitt began dancing the hay;
Hands round! -- why the deuce should we stop?
'Tis all in the family way.
My labourers used to eat mutton,
As any great man of the State does;
And now the poor devils are put on
Small rations of tea and potatoes.
But cheer up John, Sawney and Paddy,
The King is your father, they say;
So ev'n if you starve for your Daddy,
'Tis all in the family way.
My rich manufacturers tumble,
My poor ones have nothing to chew;
And, even if themselves do not grumble,
Their stomachs undoubtedly do.
But coolly to fast en famille,
Is as good for the soul as to pray;
And famine itself is genteel,
When one starves in a family way.
I have found out a secret for Freddy,
A secret for next Budget day;
Though, perhaps he may know it already,
As he, too, 's a sage in his way.
When next for the Treasury scene he
Announces "the Devil to pay",
Let him write on the bills, "Nota bene,
'Tis all in the family way."
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Written by
Dejan Stojanovic |
Our desires flew like birds in the mornings
When we were waked by the bells of dreams
Hypnotized and ready for another round of living
We would walk down the street of a foreign city mesmerized
By our own history seen on the streets and in the gardens
Filled with exotic flowers and the grass; you loved the grass
You said you would teach me everything
I never found out really what but I accepted you as mentor
To learn whatever might be
I accepted the usual, but unusual, ways of life
And lived a life I never thought I would.
It became a typhoon passing through paradise.
You accepted my gifts but perhaps not my ideas
I thought I knew you
Although I hardly knew if I knew myself;
I learned to accept your unusual, but usual, ways
Your strange thoughts about living and dreaming and mixing living with dreams
I learned to like your usual ways of presenting unusual desires
What about psychology?
There is no way to analyze the working of the brain machine,
Working billions of cells, transmitters, and neutrons
Flying, fighting, competing
How do ideas come to life?
That was another hard question.
I was not able to find out anything about anything,
Except that I was alive and felt alive and yet felt dead as well;
I watched rain, fog, horses, birds, and trees, and I watched the blue;
I really loved watching the blue every day;
You loved the same, although maybe for different reasons;
Maybe we loved each other for different reasons too.
Did we hate each other?
I felt I hated you not a few times.
Did you hate me? Maybe you did as well sometimes
And maybe you still hate me
When you think of that July when the blue was everywhere
With the white dot in the middle, shining like the first time
When everything was green
And you were glistening in the middle of the blue, the green, the summer,
But I was not there.
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Written by
Charles Bukowski |
I say to my woman, "Jeffers was
a great poet. think of a title
like Be Angry At The Sun. don't you
realize how great that is?
"you like that negative stuff." she
says
"positively," I agree, finishing my
drink and pouring another.
"in one of Jeffers' poems, not the sun poem,
this woman fucks a stallion because her
husband is such a gross spirit. and it's
believable. then the husband goes out
to kill the stallion and the stallion
kills him."
"I never heard of Jeffers," she
says.
"you never heard of Big Sur? Jeffers
made Big Sur famous just like D. H. Lawrence
made Taos famous. when a
great writer writes about where he
lives the mob comes in and takes
over."
"well you write about San Pedro," she
says.
"yeah," I say, "and have you read the
papers lately? they are going to construct
a marina here, one of the largest in the
world, millions and billions of dollars,
there is going to be a huge shopping
center, yachts and condominiums every-
where!"
"and to think," my woman says smiling, "that you've only
lived here for three years!"
"I still think," I say,
changing the subject,
"you ought to read Jeffers."
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Written by
Connie Wanek |
I don't know if we're in the beginning
or in the final stage.
-- Tomas Tranströmer
Rain is falling through the roof.
And all that prospered under the sun,
the books that opened in the morning
and closed at night, and all day
turned their pages to the light;
the sketches of boats and strong forearms
and clever faces, and of fields
and barns, and of a bowl of eggs,
and lying across the piano
the silver stick of a flute; everything
invented and imagined,
everything whispered and sung,
all silenced by cold rain.
The sky is the color of gravestones.
The rain tastes like salt, and rises
in the streets like a ruinous tide.
We spoke of millions, of billions of years.
We talked and talked.
Then a drop of rain fell
into the sound hole of the guitar, another
onto the unmade bed. And after us,
the rain will cease or it will go on falling,
even upon itself.
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Written by
A R Ammons |
This is just a place:
we go around, distanced,
yearly in a star's
atmosphere, turning
daily into and out of
direct light and
slanting through the
quadrant seasons: deep
space begins at our
heels, nearly rousing
us loose: we look up
or out so high, sight's
silk almost draws us away:
this is just a place:
currents worry themselves
coiled and free in airs
and oceans: water picks
up mineral shadow and
plasm into billions of
designs, frames: trees,
grains, bacteria: but
is love a reality we
made here ourselves--
and grief--did we design
that--or do these,
like currents, whine
in and out among us merely
as we arrive and go:
this is just a place:
the reality we agree with,
that agrees with us,
outbounding this, arrives
to touch, joining with
us from far away:
our home which defines
us is elsewhere but not
so far away we have
forgotten it:
this is just a place.
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