Collected Poems 1947-1997 - Ginsberg Allen - Страница 232

Memory Cousins

After Long Absence, I returned from the land of the dead

to visit my stepmother in her suburban apartment.

I looked from a distance, was it a mental hospital

standing on a grass plain far from Manhattan’s skyscrapers

after crossing Washington Bridge, or Jersey’s tract houses

risen gigantic during my exile in China? I’d

been gone so long my relatives’d grown old at their doors—

a neighbor widow come out to empty the black plastic

garbagebag, I’d known her middle age, now with white hair

she gazed at me nodding absently, I’d not been gone long

while her husband’d died, children married with children now—

How dear to see me, where’d I been? I looked down the long hall,

door after door of Aunts and Uncles retired alive

white haired, television bound seeing the doctor, eating

delicatessen salad Sundays, reading best seller

books, dusting furniture, cleaning kitchen floors, happily

visiting Doctors for minor blood pressure, depression

or hernias. Years ahead, they should live so long, they’d die,

I’d never see them again, best settle down while childhood

memory cousins and brothers were old, but still alive,

enjoy each other’s tables and coffee, business gossip.

Where else go off to, unhappy Russia warring Israel?

Here in America, peace, a place to live together.

They were bombing Nicaragua, factories exploding

in India, Cities crowded with Animal muggers

newspapers said, TV had pictures of them every nite—

Peter in fact just came back from Nuclear Buddhaland,

His belly exposed to Radiation a soft yellow

spot near his navel, he smiled rueful pulling his shirt

above his belt to show his mortal sore, what could cure him?

If go away now I’ll be gone forever, Peter,

Stepmother Edith, Aunt Honey & Leo, Aunt Clara

and Uncle Abe, my brother Gene & Connie & the kids,

I may never see them again. Here are their living eyes,

here’s the end of the Immortal Dream.

March 2, 1985, 7:56 A.M.

Moral Majority

Something evil about you Mr. Viguerie Mr. Falwell Robertson Swaggert.

Not evil but ignorance of the delights of the Boy

The 1920s have passed, corsets chastity belts whips

the stake, Lesbian cities aflame in your fiery eyes

—Some old Demon the Satan in possession of your body

a thousand years old, two thousand that burned the parchments of Black Sappho

I’ve seen God as much as any, he doesn’t look like you alone

He looks like me too, all the homosexuals on earth,

in Congo, Cities of North America, Rio Barrios—

He looks like a lavender fairy, Paris salons 1890 the birds & bees,

Like an ambidextrous worm, male dogs coupling in the Alabama parking-lot.

Nothing wrong with Family, Mother Father & Buba.

Nothing wrong with the Babe.

Nothing wrong with Mr. Falwell except a little mean streak

that isn’t god, just a jerk, talks too big for his britches,

inexperienced Bible Salesman

interprets words & letters, not Holy Spirit

ambitious politically, at the expense of the poor,

the thwarted, & happy ruddy kids—

Find out Buddha, enter the great silence

& pass thru the needle’s eye,

then come back happy, laughing, generous

big mouth full of good cheer, not money,

honey.

March 19, 1985

The Guest

I’ve a pain in my back

Fifth lumbar & sacrum

Kidneystones alas alack

can’t drink milk calcium

High blood pressure about

salt I can’t eat

at my age no red meat

sometimes I get gout

My age fifty eight

My friend Peter’s away

I should lose ten pounds weight

Prostrate every day

to my guru who’s Crazy

Prepare for grim death

Exercise for good health

All my life I’ve been lazy

Little gold, lots of fame

Small flat in Manhattan

tho I bank on my name

my wallet won’t fatten

But the thing I want most

to embody my joy

is the belly of a boy

and there I get lost

I met David he undressed

Came naked on my bed

He climbed on my chest

“I love you Allen” he said

He touched and caressed

my stomach, heart and thigh

appreciated my sigh

I slept chaste & blessed.

He visited New York

to sleep a week in my room

watch me at work,

enlighten my gloom—

Body young & strong

shapely from Basketball

Skin muscular stomach small

“I can’t be your lover long.”

Mind tender, he loves girls

Sees me as poetry master

His pubic hair’s soft curls

press my breast to rapture

His smooth cock grows thick

my heart beats at his loin

He presses with his groin

His hands caress my neck

I touch around his buttocks

smooth, firm and warm.