Collected Poems 1947-1997 - Ginsberg Allen - Страница 18

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