Collected Poems 1947-1997 - Ginsberg Allen - Страница 26

O future, unimaginable God.

Finca Tacalapan de San

Leandro, Palenque,

Chiapas, Mexico 1954–San Francisco 1955

II

Jump in time

          to the immediate future,

another poem:

          return to the old land

penniless and with

          a disconnected manuscript,

the recollection of a few

          sensations, beginning:

logboat down Rio Michol

          under plantain

and drifting trees

          to the railroad,

          darkness on the sea

looking toward the stations

          of the classic world—

another image descending

          in white mist

down the lunar highway

          at dawn, above

Lake Catemaco on the bus

          —it woke me up—

the far away likeness

          of a heavenly file

of female saints

          stepping upward

on miniature arches

          of a gold stairway

into the starry sky,

          the thousands of little

saintesses in blue hoods

          looking out at me

and beckoning:

          SALVATION!

          It’s true,

simple as in the image.

          Then the mummies

in their Pantheon

          at Guanajuato—

a city of Cortesian

          mines in the first

crevasse of the Sierras,

          where I rested—

for I longed to see their

          faces before I left:

these weren’t mythical rock

          images, tho stone

—limestone effigies out

          of the grave, remains

of the fatal character—

newly resurrected,

          grasping their bodies

with stiff arms, in soiled

          funeral clothes;

twisted, knock-kneed,

          like burning

screaming lawyers—

what hallucinations

          of the nerves?—

indecipherable-sexed;

          one death-man had

raised up his arms

          to cover his eyes,

significant timeless

          reflex in sepulchre:

apparitions of immortality

          consumed inward,

waiting openmouthed

          in the fireless darkness.

Nearby, stacked symmetrically,

          a skullbone wall ending

the whitewashed corridor

          under the graveyard

—foetid smell reminiscent

          of sperm and drunkenness—

the skulls empty and fragile,

          numerous as shells,

—so much life passed through

          this town …

The problem is isolation

          —there in the grave

or here in oblivion of light.

          Of eternity we have

a numbered score of years

          and fewer tender moments

—one moment of tenderness

          and a year of intelligence

and nerves: one moment of pure

          bodily tenderness—

I could dismiss Allen with grim

          pleasure.

Reminder: I knelt in my room

          on the patio at San Miguel

at the keyhole: 2 A.M.

          The old woman lit a candle.

Two young men and their girls

          waited before the portal,

news from the street. She

          changed the linen, smiling.

What joy! The nakedness!

          They dance! They talk

and simper before the door,

          they lean on a leg,

hand on a hip, and posture,

          nudity in their hearts,

they clap a hand to head

          and whirl and enter,

pushing each other,

          happily, happily,

to a moment of love… .

What solitude I’ve

          finally inherited.

          Afterward fifteen hours

on rubbled single lane,

          broken bus rocking along

the maws and continental crags