Collected Poems 1947-1997 - Ginsberg Allen - Страница 82

Where shall I seek Law? in the State

               in offices of telepath bureaucracy—?

in my dis-ease, my trembling, my cry

               —ecstatic song to myself

to my police my law my state my

               many selfs—

Aye, Self is Law and State Police

     Kennedy struck down knew him Self

Oswald, Ruby ourselves

               Till we know our desires Blest

               with babe issue,

                         Resolve, accept

               this self flesh we bear

          in underwear, Bathrobe, smoking cigarette

          up all night—brooding, solitary, set

                    alone, tremorous leg & arm—

               approaching the joy of Alones

               Racked by that, arm laid to rest,

                    head back wide-eyed

Morning, my song to Who listens, to

               myself as I am

To my fellows in this shape that building

               Brooklyn Bridge or Albany name—

               Salute to the self-gods on

                              Pennsylvania Avenue!

May they have mercy on us all,

May be just men not murderers

     Nor the State murder more,

     That all beggars be fed, all

               dying medicined, all loveless

               Tomorrow be loved

                              well come & be balm.

March 16, 1964

II

On the roof cloudy sky fading sun rays

                    electric torches atop—

               auto horns—The towers

          with time-hands giant pointing

                    late Dusk hour over

                         clanky roofs

Tenement streets’ brick sagging cornices

          baby white kite fluttering against giant

          insect face-gill Electric Mill

               smokestacked blue & fumes drift up

     Red messages, shining high floors,

          Empire State dotted with tiny windows

               lit, across the blocks

          of spire, steeple, golden topped utility

               building roofs—far like

               pyramids lit in jagged

                    desert rocks—

The giant the giant city awake

          in the first warm breath of springtime

Waking voices, babble of Spanish

          street families, radio music

          floating under roofs, longhaired

                    announcer sincerity squawking

                              cigar voice

               Light zips up phallos stories

               beneath red antennae needling

                    thru rooftop chimneys’ smog

                         black drift thru the blue air—

Bridges curtained by uplit apartment walls,

               one small tower with a light

          on its shoulder below the “moody, water-loving giants”

The giant stacks burn thick gray

          smoke, Chrysler is lit with green,

down Wall street islands of skyscraper

     black jagged in Sabbath quietness—

Oh fathers, how I am alone in this

          vast human wilderness

Houses uplifted like hives off

          the stone floor of the world—

the city too vast to know, too

          myriad windowed to govern

               from ancient halls—

“O edifice of gas!”—Sun shafts

     descend on the highest building’s

          striped blocktop a red light

               winks buses hiss & rush

               grinding, green lights

               of north bridges,

               hum roar & Tarzan

                    squeal, whistle

                    swoops, hurrahs!

Is someone dying in all this stone building?

Child poking its black head out of the womb

          like the pupil of an eye?

Am I not breathing here frightened

                    and amazed—?

Where is my comfort, where’s heart-ease,

          Where are tears of joy?

Where are the companions? in

          deep homes in Stuyvesant Town

          behind the yellow-window wall?

I fail, book fails—a lassitude,

          a fear—tho I’m alive

and gaze over the descending—No!

peer in the inky beauty of the roofs.

April 18, 1964

After Yeats

Now incense fills the air

and delight follows delight,