Gregory Corso Poems

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 1856 

Paris, from throats of iron, silver, brass, 
Joy-thundering cannon, blent with chiming bells, 
And martial strains, the full-voiced pæan swells. 
The air is starred with flags, the chanted mass 
Throngs all the churches, yet the broad streets swarm 
With glad-eyed groups who chatter, laugh, and pass, 
In holiday confusion, class with class. 
And over all the spring, the...Read more of this...

 They deliver the edicts of God

without delay

And are exempt from apprehension

from detention

And with their God-given

Petasus, Caduceus, and Talaria

ferry like bolts of lightning

unhindered between the tribunals

of Space & Time


The Messenger-Spirit

in human flesh

is assigned a dependable,

self-reliant, versatile,

thoroughly poet existence

upon its sojourn in life


It does not knock

or ring the bell

or telephone

When the Messenger-Spirit

comes to your door

though locked

It'll enter like an electric midwife

and...Read more of this...

 LIKE winds or waters were her ways:
The flowing tides, the airy streams,
Are troubled not by any dreams;
They know the circle of their days.


Like winds or waters were her ways:
They heed not immemorial cries;
They move to their high destinies
Beyond the little voice that prays.


She passed into her secret goal,
And left behind a soul that trod
In darkness, knowing not of God,
But...Read more of this...

 Budger of history Brake of time You Bomb
 Toy of universe Grandest of all snatched sky I cannot hate you
 Do I hate the mischievous thunderbolt the jawbone of an ass
 The bumpy club of One Million B.C. the mace the flail the axe
 Catapult Da Vinci tomahawk Cochise flintlock Kidd dagger Rathbone
 Ah and the sad desparate gun...Read more of this...

 With a love a madness for Shelley
Chatterton Rimbaud
and the needy-yap of my youth
 has gone from ear to ear:
 I HATE OLD POETMEN!
Especially old poetmen who retract
who consult other old poetmen
who speak their youth in whispers,
saying:--I did those then
 but that was then
 that was then--
O I would quiet old men
say to them:--I am your friend
 what you once...Read more of this...

 My hands did numb to beauty
as they reached into Death and tightened!

O sovereign was my touch
upon the tan-inks's fragile page!

Quickly, my eyes moved quickly,
sought for smell for dust for lace
for dry hair!

I would have taken the page
breathing in the crime!
For no evidence have I wrung from dreams--
yet what triumph is there in private credence?

Often, in some steep ancestral book,
when...Read more of this...

 Last night I drove a car


 not knowing how to drive
 not owning a car

 I drove and knocked down

 people I loved
 ...went 120 through one town.



 I stopped at Hedgeville

 and slept in the back seat


 ...excited about my new life....Read more of this...

 I am watching them churn the last milk they'll ever get
from me.
They are waiting for me to die;
They want to make buttons out of my bones.
Where are my sisters and brothers?
That tall monk there, loading my uncle, he has a new cap.
And that idiot student of his--
I never saw that muffler before.
Poor uncle, he lets them load him.
How sad...Read more of this...