Collected Poems 1947-1997 - Ginsberg Allen - Страница 221

they will fight

back all right—

Then to condemn

their armed men

and not molli

fy their fears

is sheer folly

O my dears!

Hypocrisy

is the key

to self fulfilling

prophecy

United States

you’re the greatest

Superdick

your big stick

& big mouth

North & South

causes fear—

Armies near

and armies far

or army talk

wherever you are

makes folks here

think you’re queer

Big gun boats

that you float,

big rumors

that you dote

on will be quoted

in Managua

Santiago

Buenos Aires

& Havana

as more dread

threat of war

and Central

America will

Mobilize

militarize

and devise

a defense,

it’s common sense.

Then to complain

that their plan

to fight back

is a pain in the neck

of the Pentagon—

Washington

is crazy, Man.

Hypocrisy

is the key

to self fulfilling

prophecy—

If you’re willing—

costs an eye

and an ear

mad with fear.

Intercontinental Hotel Bar, Managua

January 25, 1982, 11 P.M.

Happening Now?

Happening now? End of Earth? Apocalypse days?

President says “Armageddon!” $254 Billion Military Budget!

The 5 A.M. subway train leaves Times Square

Crowded with murderers & corpses sitting in dress suits,

Earphones listening to mechanical disco, infinite

Deaf universe of Walkman Happening now

While I drink Perrier at parties in Bel Air

Neutron bomb Nerve Bacteria gas, fruit fly recombinant

Germ plasm, Stratospheric X-ray laser

Anti-rocket beams, MX Cruise Stealth & Pershing missiles

In dream ten years ago I stood on a South Texas crossroad

Walked out alone from what City I couldn’t remember

Half the sky was covered with ink-black cloud

Tanks and bombers moved toward the distant horizon

February 7, 1982

A Public Poetry

The fact is, the Russians are sissies

And Chinese big yellow sissies too

Americans by their nature sissies

Ran away to the New World & beat up Indians,

Now we’re gonna let Peabody Coal take their Four Corners away!

So sissy we exploded Atom Bombs on Japs!

I myself a famous sissy, it takes one to know one

and know State Secretary XYZ a prissy sissy

Gave his nickels to Indian killer Juntas in Guatemala

Too freaked out to look El Salvador Deathsquads in the eye

Yelling tiny Nicaragua’s a big threat to undernourished Mexico!

President ABC’s the biggest sissy

Hollywood sissy

Bechtel Corporation sissy

Such a sissy he gave 200 Billion Dollars to Pentagon Bullies

frightened they’ll beat him up if he don’t let the Generals grab all his money

And the American public’s sissy too

Scared if they don’t give everything in their pockets to Defense Department

the muscle men at the Pentagon and tough guys at CIA’ll

beat up Congress and Supreme Court

and take over the whole Western Block.

April 6, 1982, 2:00 P.M.

“What You Up To?”

“Oh just hanging around

     picking my nose …”

I replied, embarrassed

     in Naropa’s corridor,

the Sanskrit professor’d saluted me

as Americans are wont to do—

What must he think my genius,

     a large red blob on my

     index finger tip—

But I suffer from Bell’s palsy

my lower eyelid slightly paralyzed

no longer conducts tears thru

     my nostril

thus my nose corridors dry up

     & crack, for five years

whenever I lift the handkerchief

     from my face

a spot of red stains the pure

     cotton & shames me.

When I walk with bent spine & cane

     will my nose be caked with

blood black & ulcerous? tears

     running down my cheeks

a bony pinkie picking at the

     scarlet scab that got thick

overnight, I forgot to grease my

     wrinkled snout the nite