Collected Poems 1947-1997 - Ginsberg Allen - Страница 227

Student Love

The boy’s fresh faced, 18, big smile

underwear hangs below his shorts, he’s a kid

                         still growing

legs strong, he hugs me, steps away—

In twenty years thick bellied,

               bright eyes dulled with office work,

     his children’ll pout in the

bathroom—

Better get in bed with him on top of me now

               laughing at my pot belly

before decades pass, bring our bony skulls whispering

                    to the hospital bedside.

July 31, 1984

The Question

When that dress-gray, gray haired and gray-faced

goblin took charge of me then inside the gate,

which closed behind me for a couple years,

I was still cheerful exceedingly

cheerful nodding out (hadn’t slept for days),

cheerful because taking part in real life

action again, two serious gentlemen

at my shoulders in a night-colored car which

special for me rolled across December’s bridge,

cheerful because I’d yelled out in the street

that this one and that one should be notified,

cheerful because I thought the adventure

a minor excursion, but cheerful also,

because such a gray such a small Uncle

I’d never seen yet, he however

wasn’t cheerful, was reassuringly

bored bananas, boringly signed for

my delivery and boringly

turned my seven pockets inside out,

then with a wooden face confiscated

handkerchief, pocketknife, bunch of keys,

next indifferently requested my belt

and examined personally whether

my underpants operated with string,

yawned apathetic patting me down,

last nearly napping asked for the laces

that wagged lighthearted from my shoetops—

“I can’t walk like this”—he shrugged a shoulder.

Left hand holding my pants up, spellbound by

this unprecedented situation, yet

still cavalier I bowed deep presenting

him with the shoelaces in my right hand.

“What’s the point anyhow? I really don’t

intend to hang myself”—I assured him

lighthearted. “You don’t?” he questioned. … “Why not?”

On his sallow face neither mockery nor hate.

That was when the fear caught up with me.

Istvan Eorsi

Translated with author by A. G. September 5, 1984

In My Kitchen in New York

for Bataan Faigao

Bend knees, shift weight—

Picasso’s blue deathhead self portrait

     tacked on refrigerator door—

This is the only space in the apartment

     big enough to do T’ai chi—

Straighten right foot & rise—I wonder

     if I should have set aside that garbage

     pail—

Raise up my hands & bring them back to

     shoulders—The towels and pajama

     laundry’s hanging on a rope in the hall—

Push down & grasp the sparrow’s tail—

     Those paper boxes of grocery bags are

     blocking the closed door—

Turn north—I should hang up all

     those pots on the stovetop—

Am I holding the world right?—That

     Hopi picture on the wall shows

     rain & lightning bolt—

Turn right again—thru the door, God

     my office space, a mess of

     pictures & unanswered letters—

Left on my hips—Thank God Arthur Rimbaud’s

     watching me from over the sink—

Single whip—piano’s in the room, well

     Steven & Maria finally’ll move to their

     own apartment next week! His pants’re

     still here & Julius in his bed—

This gesture’s the opposite of St. Francis

     in Ecstasy by Bellini—hands

     down for me—

I better concentrate on what I’m doing—

     weight in belly, move from hips—

No, that was the single whip—that apron’s

     hanging on the North wall a year

     I haven’t used it once

Except to wipe my hands—the Crane

     spreads its wings—have I paid

     the electric bill?

Playing the guitar—do I have enough $

     to leave the rent paid while I’m

     in China?

Brush knee—that was good

     halvah, pounded sesame seed,

     in the icebox a week—

Withdraw & push—I should

     get a loft or giant living room—

The land speculators bought up all

     the square feet in Manhattan,

     beginning with the Indians—

Cross hands—I should write