Collected Poems 1947-1997 - Ginsberg Allen - Страница 215

To

Edith Ginsberg

Acknowledgments

Steven Taylor: Lead sheets; Walter Taylor: Lyric calligraphy.

Harry Smith: Archetype design for cover, executed by Julie Metz.

Bill Morgan, Bob Rosenthal, Juanita Lieberman, Gary Allen and Vicki Stanbury helped assemble typescript texts.

Aaron Asher & Terry Karten, Editors; Marge Horvitz, Copy Editor; Bill Monroe, Surveyor of Detail.

Porch Scribbles

Balmy, hotter outside than in the living room—

          Wind rustles the rattlesnake reeds.

Didja see the Perseus star shower last night?

*   *   *

Bright on Flatirons, sunshine gleams

          on clouds, on brown shake shingles,

                    tree limbs rock,

So bright on the car roof, I gotta sleep—

*   *   *

I want that brick house on Mapleton,

it’s for sale “Moore Real Estate”—

               But price too high,

I’m too drowsy to go to the telephone.

*   *   *

Clouds float up from the end of the world—

          Have we enough room for population explosion?

Call up Gary, let’s find out what he thinks.

July 11, 1980

That tree stands higher than a house

          like a dog with hair drooping over its mouth—

green long beanpods hang from its branches

*   *   *

It’s a whale that big gray-bottom cloud floating

over the Flatirons, it’s a mushroom, a shipcastle, a

               mountain with sunshine and Coasts—

                                   It’s a pile of mist.

*   *   *

Look up, clouds in the sky,

          suddenly their shadows fall where Mrs. Hurst

               on Mapleton Street sprays her front lawn.

*   *   *

Midsummer, green leaves thick on maples

          The front yard, white flowers—

               Cause it’s just so beautiful now!

How sad, to be alive watching the season at its height—

*   *   *

          Spray the lawn, it’s too hot—

Street children call, car radios play muted disco

               Gray clouds umbrella brilliant sun

I used to be young once, bewildered

                         like that barechested little

                              girl across the street.

*   *   *

Where I sit, leg over my knee

listening to the whippoorwill call of a distant ambulance,

the thin tree’s little leaves startle and jump,

raindrops fall thicker & the smell of ozone

               wafts across the porch.

*   *   *

Everyone loves the rain, except those caught in their

                                        business suits,

birds whistle, tree leaves shake excited, electric smells

rise across the City to the watchers on the balcony—

August 2, 1980

Did the Ecologist chop his girl with an ax in Philadelphia

          & hide her corpse a year in the trunk?

What does that red-haired boy half-naked on the sidewalk

                         with his Frisbee think of that?

Boulder, August 3, 1980

Industrial Waves

Tune: Capitol Air

The New Right’s a creepy pre-Fascist fad

Salute the flag & call on Mom & Dad

Shit on the niggers it’s their fault they were slaves

In a free market you can get rich filling graves.

Freedom for the rich to suck off the Work of the Poor

Freedom for Monopoly to corner the market in horse manure

Freedom for the secret police and guys with guns

Freedom for bully buys! Death to the Radical Nuns!

Freedom to buy Judges! Freedom for organized crime!

Freedom for the Military! “I got mine.”

Hundred millions free to starve, isn’t that great?

Freedom for the Neutron bomb to radiate!

Freedom for War! Fight for Peace! Whoopee!

“Government off our backs”—except the Military!

Freedom for Narcs to put junkies in jail!

Freedom to punish sick addicts, all hail!

Freedom to bust you for grass if you please

Freedom to beat you up when you’re down on your knees

Freedom for Capital Punishment, without fail!

Freedom to wiretap your phone & open up your mail.

Freedom for Cosa Nostra’s pornography

Freedom to ban your verse in the high school library

Freedom to stop deaf widows’ food stamps

Freedom to draft-register everyone wearing pants.

Free computerized National Police!

Everybody got identity cards? At Ease!

Freedom for Big Business to eat up the sea

Freedom for Exxon to examine your pee!

Freedom of the air for William Buckley

Freedom for Mobil to buy up TV

Freedom to influence Network News

Freedom for money to make you wear shoes.

Freedom to fink out Nicaraguan liberty

Freedom to shove them into Soviet economy!

Freedom for Costa Rica to eat our military scenes

Freedom in Honduras for Contras & Marines!

Freedom for Indonesia to murder half million

Freedom for South Africa to stabilize the Bullion