"David" wrote:
> "Olympiada" wrote:
>> David wrote:
>>> "Olympiada" wrote:
>
>>>> So, David, do you like any of Allen Ginsburg's poetry? If so would you
>>>> post your favorite?
>>>> Olympiada
>
>>> Ah guess I could turn out an exposition of 'The Sunflower Sutra'
>>> and relate it to the adult child dilemma...
>
>>> in the end it would likely turn away the other posters here
>
>>> and if they went i would likely go too...
>
>>> :>(
>
>>> David.
>> Why not just post the poem?
>
> Sunflower Sutra
> I walked on the banks of the tincan banana dock and
> sat down under the huge shade of a Southern
> Pacific locomotive to look at the sunset over the
> box house hills and cry.
> Jack Kerouac sat beside me on a busted rusty iron
> pole, companion, we thought the same thoughts
> of the soul, bleak and blue and sad-eyed,
> surrounded by the gnarled steel roots of trees of
> machinery.
> The oily water on the river mirrored the red sky, sun
> sank on top of final Frisco peaks, no fish in that
> stream, no hermit in those mounts, just ourselves
> rheumy-eyed and hungover like old bums
> on the riverbank, tired and wily.
> Look at the Sunflower, he said, there was a dead gray
> shadow against the sky, big as a man, sitting
> dry on top of a pile of ancient sawdust--
> --I rushed up enchanted--it was my first sunflower,
> memories of Blake--my visions--Harlem
> and Hells of the Eastern rivers, bridges clanking Joes
> Greasy Sandwiches, dead baby carriages, black
> treadless tires forgotten and unretreaded, the
> poem of the riverbank, condoms & pots, steel
> knives, nothing stainless, only the dank muck
> and the razor-sharp artifacts passing into the
> past--
> and the gray Sunflower poised against the sunset,
> crackly bleak and dusty with the smut and smog
> and smoke of olden locomotives in its eye--
> corolla of bleary spikes pushed down and broken like
> a battered crown, seeds fallen out of its face,
> soon-to-be-toothless mouth of sunny air, sunrays
> obliterated on its hairy head like a dried
> wire spiderweb,
> leaves stuck out like arms out of the stem, gestures
> from the sawdust root, broke pieces of plaster
> fallen out of the black twigs, a dead fly in its ear,
> Unholy battered old thing you were, my sunflower O
> my soul, I loved you then!
> The grime was no man's grime but death and human
> locomotives,
> all that dress of dust, that veil of darkened railroad
> skin, that smog of cheek, that eyelid of black
> mis'ry, that sooty hand or phallus or protuberance
> of artificial worse-than-dirt--industrial--
> modern--all that civilization spotting your
> crazy golden crown--
> and those blear thoughts of death and dusty loveless
> eyes and ends and withered roots below, in the
> home-pile of sand and sawdust, rubber dollar
> bills, skin of machinery, the guts and innards
> of the weeping coughing car, the empty lonely
> tincans with their rusty tongues alack, what
> more could I name, the smoked ashes of some
> cock cigar, the cunts of wheelbarrows and the
> milky breasts of cars, wornout asses out of chairs
> & sphincters of dynamos--all these
> entangled in your mummied roots--and you there
> standing before me in the sunset, all your glory
> in your form!
> A perfect beauty of a sunflower! a perfect excellent
> lovely sunflower existence! a sweet natural eye
> to the new hip moon, woke up alive and excited
> grasping in the sunset shadow sunrise golden
> monthly breeze!
> How many flies buzzed round you innocent of your
> grime, while you cursed the heavens of the
> railroad and your flower soul?
> Poor dead flower? when did you forget you were a
> flower? when did you look at your skin and
> decide you were an impotent dirty old locomotive?
> the ghost of a locomotive? the specter and
> shade of a once powerful mad American locomotive?
> You were never no locomotive, Sunflower, you were a
> sunflower!
> And you Locomotive, you are a locomotive, forget me
> not!
> So I grabbed up the skeleton thick sunflower and stuck
> it at my side like a scepter,
> and deliver my sermon to my soul, and Jack's soul
> too, and anyone who'll listen,
> --We're not our skin of grime, we're not our dread
> bleak dusty imageless locomotive, we're all
> beautiful golden sunflowers inside, we're blessed
> by our own seed & golden hairy naked
> accomplishment-bodies growing into mad black
> formal sunflowers in the sunset, spied on by our
> eyes under the shadow of the mad locomotive
> riverbank sunset Frisco hilly tincan evening
> sitdown vision.
> Allen Ginsberg
>
> Berkeley, 1955
Hey, David!
Since we're debating Ginsberg's talents (or lack of, in the opinions of the
usual gang of idiots), and his importance to the beat generation, I Googled
and came across this thread... one of Ginsberg's finest, imo.
Here's another favorite of mine by Ginsberg:
from "Wichita Vortex Sutra" (1966)
I'm an old man now, and a lonesome man in Kansas
but not afraid
to speak my lonesomeness in a car,
because not only my lonesomeness
it's Ours, all over America,
O tender fellows--
& spoken lonesomeness is Prophecy
in the moon 100 years ago or in
the middle of Kansas now.
It's not the vast plains mute our mouths
that fill at midnite with ecstatic language
when our trembling bodies hold each other
breast to breast on a matress--
Not the empty sky that hides
the feeling from our faces
nor our skirts and trousers that conceal
the bodylove emanating in a glow of beloved skin,
white smooth abdomen down to the hair
between our
legs,
It's not a God that bore us that forbid
our Being, like a sunny rose
all red with naked joy
between our eyes & bellies, yes
All we do is for this frightened thing
we call Love, want and lack--
fear that we aren't the one whose body could be
beloved of all the brides of Kansas City,
kissed all over by every boy of Wichita--
O but how many in their solitude weep aloud like me--
On the bridge over the Republican River
almost in tears to know
how to speak the right language--
on the frosty broad road
uphill between highway embankments
I search for the language
that is also yours--
almost all our language has been taxed by
war.
Radio antennae high tension
wires ranging from Junction City across the plains--
highway cloverleaf sunk in a vast meadow
lanes curving past Abilene
to Denver filled with old
heroes of
love--
to Wichita where McClure's mind
burst into animal beauty
drunk, getting laid in a car
in a neon misted street
15 years
ago--
to Independence where the old man's still alive
who loosed the bomb that's slaved all human consciousness
and made the body universe a place of fear--
Now, speeding along the empty plain,
no giant demon machine
visible on the horizon
but tiny human trees and wooden houses at the sky's edge
I claim my birthright!
reborn forever as long as Man
in Kansas or other universe--Joy
reborn after the vast sadness of War Gods!
A lone man talking to myself, no house in the brown vastness to hear,
imaging the throng of Selves
that make this nation one body of Prophecy
languaged by Declaration as
Happiness!
I call all Powers of imagination
to my side in this auto to make Prophecy,
all
Lords
of human kingdoms to come
Shambu Bharti Baba naked covered with ash
Khaki Baba fat-bellied mad with the dogs
Dehorahava Baba who moans Oh how wounded, How wounded
Sitaram Onkar Das Thakur who commands
give up your desire
Satyananda who raises two thumbs in tranquility
Kali Pada Guha Roy whose yoga drops before the void
Shivananda who touches the breast and says OM
Srimata Krishnaji of Brindaban who says take for your guru
William Blake the invisible father of English visions
Sri Ramakrishna master of ecstasy eyes
half closed who only cries for his mother
Chaitanya arms upraised singing & dancing his own praise
merciful Chango judging our bodies
Durga-Ma covered with blood
destroyer of battlefield illusions
million-faced Tathagata gone past suffering
Preserver Harekrishna returning in the age of pain
Sacred Heart my Christ acceptable
Allah the Compassionate One
Jahweh Righteous One
all Knowledge-Princes of Earth-man, all
ancient Seraphim of heavenly Desire, Devas, yogis
& holymen I chant to--
Come to my lone presence
into this Vortex named
Kansas,
I lift my voice aloud,
make Mantra of American language now,
I here declare the end of the War!
Ancient days' Illusion!
and pronounce words beginning my own millennium.
Let the States tremble,
let the Nation weep,
let Congress legislate it own delight
let the President execute his own desire--
this Act done by my own voice,
nameless Mystery--
published to my own senses,
blissfully received by my own form
approved with pleasure by my sensations
manifestation of my very thought
accomplished in my own imagination
all realms within my consciousness fulfilled
60 miles from Wichita
near El Dorado,
The Golden One,
in chill earthly mist
houseless brown farmland plains rolling heavenward
in
every direction
one midwinter afternoon Sunday called the day of the Lord--
Pure Spring Water gathered in one tower
where Florence is
set on a hill,
stop for tea & gas
-Allen Ginsberg 1966
