Life and Existence

Kaddish, Part I

Strange now to think of you, gone without corsets & eyes, while I walk on
the sunny pavement of Greenwich Village.

downtown Manhattan, clear winter noon, and I've been up all night, talking,
talking, reading the Kaddish aloud, listening to Ray Charles blues
shout blind on the phonograph

the rhythm the rhythm--and your memory in my head three years after-And
read Adonais' last triumphant stanzas aloud--wept, realizing
how we suffer--

And how Death is that remedy all singers dream of, sing, remember,
prophesy as in the Hebrew Anthem, or the Buddhist Book of Answers--
and my own imagination of a withered leaf--at dawn--

Dreaming back thru life, Your time--and mine accelerating toward Apocalypse,


the final moment--the flower burning in the Day--and what comes after,

looking back on the mind itself that saw an American city

a flash away, and the great dream of Me or China, or you and a phantom
Russia, or a crumpled bed that never existed-


like a poem in the dark--escaped back to Oblivion--

No more to say, and nothing to weep for but the Beings in the Dream,
trapped in its disappearance,

sighing, screaming with it, buying and selling pieces of phantom, worshipping
each other,

worshipping the God included in it all--longing or inevitability?--while it
lasts, a Vision--anything more?

It leaps about me, as I go out and walk the street, look back over my shoulder,
Seventh Avenue, the battlements of window office buildings shouldering
each other high, under a cloud, tall as the sky an instant--and
the sky above--an old blue place.

or down the Avenue to the south, to--as I walk toward the Lower East Side
--where you walked 50 years ago, little girl--from Russia, eating the
first poisonous tomatoes of America frightened on the dock

then struggling in the crowds of Orchard Street toward what?--toward
Newark-


toward candy store, first home-made sodas of the century, hand-churned ice
cream in backroom on musty brownfloor boards--

Toward education marriage nervous breakdown, operation, teaching school,
and learning to be mad, in a dream--what is this life?

Toward the Key in the window--and the great Key lays its head of light
on top of Manhattan, and over the floor, and lays down on the
sidewalk--in a single vast beam, moving, as I walk down First toward
the Yiddish Theater--and the place of poverty

you knew, and I know, but without caring now--Strange to have moved
thru Paterson, and the West, and Europe and here again,

with the cries of Spaniards now in the doorstops doors and dark boys on
the street, firs escapes old as you

--Tho you're not old now, that's left here with me--

Myself, anyhow, maybe as old as the universe--and I guess that dies with
us--enough to cancel all that comes--What came is gone forever
every time-


That's good!That leaves it open for no regret--no fear radiators, lacklove,
torture even toothache in the end--

Though while it comes it is a lion that eats the soul--and the lamb, the soul,


in us, alas, offering itself in sacrifice to change's fierce hunger--hair
and teeth--and the roar of bonepain, skull bare, break rib, rot-skin,
braintricked Implacability.


Ai! ai!we do worse! We are in a fix!And you're out, Death let you out,
Death had the Mercy, you're done with your century, done with
God, done with the path thru it--Done with yourself at last--Pure
--Back to the Babe dark before your Father, before us all--before the
world--

There, rest.No more suffering for you.I know where you've gone, it's good.

No more flowers in the summer fields of New York, no joy now, no more
fear of Louis,

and no more of his sweetness and glasses, his high school decades, debts,
loves, frightened telephone calls, conception beds, relatives, hands--

No more of sister Elanor,--she gone before you--we kept it secret you
killed her--or she killed herself to bear with you--an arthritic heart
--But Death's killed you both--No matter--

Nor your memory of your mother, 1915 tears in silent movies weeks and
weeks--forgetting, agrieve watching Marie Dressler address humanity,
Chaplin dance in youth,

or Boris Godunov, Chaliapin's at the Met, halling his voice of a weeping Czar
--by standing room with Elanor & Max--watching also the Capital
ists take seats in Orchestra, white furs, diamonds,

with the YPSL's hitch-hiking thru Pennsylvania, in black baggy gym skirts
pants, photograph of 4 girls holding each other round the waste, and
laughing eye, too coy, virginal solitude of 1920

all girls grown old, or dead now, and that long hair in the grave--lucky to
have husbands later--

You made it--I came too--Eugene my brother before (still grieving now and
will gream on to his last stiff hand, as he goes thru his cancer--or kill
--later perhaps--soon he will think--)

And it's the last moment I remember, which I see them all, thru myself, now
--tho not you

I didn't foresee what you felt--what more hideous gape of bad mouth came
first--to you--and were you prepared?

To go where?In that Dark--that--in that God? a radiance? A Lord in the
Void?Like an eye in the black cloud in a dream?Adonoi at last, with
you?

Beyond my remembrance! Incapable to guess! Not merely the yellow skull
in the grave, or a box of worm dust, and a stained ribbon--Deathshead
with Halo?can you believe it?

Is it only the sun that shines once for the mind, only the flash of existence,
than none ever was?

Nothing beyond what we have--what you had--that so pitiful--yet Triumph,


to have been here, and changed, like a tree, broken, or flower--fed to the
ground--but made, with its petals, colored, thinking Great Universe,
shaken, cut in the head, leaf stript, hid in an egg crate hospital, cloth
wrapped, sore--freaked in the moon brain, Naughtless.

No flower like that flower, which knew itself in the garden, and fought the
knife--lost

Cut down by an idiot Snowman's icy--even in the Spring--strange ghost
thought some--Death--Sharp icicle in his hand--crowned with old


roses--a dog for his eyes--cock of a sweatshop--heart of electric
irons.


All the accumulations of life, that wear us out--clocks, bodies, consciousness,
shoes, breasts--begotten sons--your Communism--'Paranoia' into
hospitals.

You once kicked Elanor in the leg, she died of heart failure later.You of
stroke.Asleep?within a year, the two of you, sisters in death.Is
Elanor happy?

Max grieves alive in an office on Lower Broadway, lone large mustache over
midnight Accountings, not sure.His life passes--as he sees--and
what does he doubt now?Still dream of making money, or that might
have made money, hired nurse, had children, found even your Immortality,
Naomi?

I'll see him soon.Now I've got to cut through to talk to you as I didn't
when you had a mouth.
Forever.And we're bound for that, Forever like Emily Dickinson's horses
--headed to the End.
They know the way--These Steeds--run faster than we think--it's our own
life they cross--and take with them.

Magnificent, mourned no more, marred of heart, mind behind, married
dreamed, mortal changed--Ass and face done with murder.
In the world, given, flower maddened, made no Utopia, shut under
pine, almed in Earth, blamed in Lone, Jehovah, accept.

Nameless, One Faced, Forever beyond me, beginningless, endless,
Father in death.Tho I am not there for this Prophecy, I am unmarried, I'm
hymnless, I'm Heavenless, headless in blisshood I would still adore

Thee, Heaven, after Death, only One blessed in Nothingness, not
light or darkness, Dayless Eternity-Take
this, this Psalm, from me, burst from my hand in a day, some
of my Time, now given to Nothing--to praise Thee--But Death

This is the end, the redemption from Wilderness, way for the Wonderer,
House sought for All, black handkerchief washed clean by weeping
--page beyond Psalm--Last change of mine and Naomi--to God's perfect
Darkness--Death, stay thy phantoms!

II
Over and over--refrain--of the Hospitals--still haven't written your
history--leave it abstract--a few images
run thru the mind--like the saxophone chorus of houses and years-remembrance
of electrical shocks.
By long nites as a child in Paterson apartment, watching over your
nervousness--you were fat--your next move-


By that afternoon I stayed home from school to take care of you-once
and for all--when I vowed forever that once man disagreed with my
opinion of the cosmos, I was lost-


By my later burden--vow to illuminate mankind--this is release of
particulars--(mad as you)--(sanity a trick of agreement)-But
you stared out the window on the Broadway Church corner, and
spied a mystical assassin from Newark,
So phoned the Doctor--'OK go way for a rest'--so I put on my coat
and walked you downstreet--On the way a grammarschool boy screamed,


unaccountably--'Where you goin Lady to Death'? I shuddered-


and you covered your nose with motheaten fur collar, gas mask
against poison sneaked into downtown atmosphere, sprayed by Grandma-


And was the driver of the cheesebox Public Service bus a member of
the gang?You shuddered at his face, I could hardly get you on--to New
York, very Times Square, to grab another Greyhound--

Kaddish, Part I

Strange now to think of you, gone without corsets & eyes, while I walk on
the sunny pavement of Greenwich Village.

downtown Manhattan, clear winter noon, and I've been up all night, talking,
talking, reading the Kaddish aloud, listening to Ray Charles blues
shout blind on the phonograph

the rhythm the rhythm--and your memory in my head three years after-And
read Adonais' last triumphant stanzas aloud--wept, realizing
how we suffer--

And how Death is that remedy all singers dream of, sing, remember,
prophesy as in the Hebrew Anthem, or the Buddhist Book of Answers--
and my own imagination of a withered leaf--at dawn--

Dreaming back thru life, Your time--and mine accelerating toward Apocalypse,


the final moment--the flower burning in the Day--and what comes after,

looking back on the mind itself that saw an American city

a flash away, and the great dream of Me or China, or you and a phantom
Russia, or a crumpled bed that never existed-


like a poem in the dark--escaped back to Oblivion--

No more to say, and nothing to weep for but the Beings in the Dream,
trapped in its disappearance,

sighing, screaming with it, buying and selling pieces of phantom, worshipping
each other,

worshipping the God included in it all--longing or inevitability?--while it
lasts, a Vision--anything more?

It leaps about me, as I go out and walk the street, look back over my shoulder,
Seventh Avenue, the battlements of window office buildings shouldering
each other high, under a cloud, tall as the sky an instant--and
the sky above--an old blue place.

or down the Avenue to the south, to--as I walk toward the Lower East Side
--where you walked 50 years ago, little girl--from Russia, eating the
first poisonous tomatoes of America frightened on the dock

then struggling in the crowds of Orchard Street toward what?--toward
Newark-


toward candy store, first home-made sodas of the century, hand-churned ice
cream in backroom on musty brownfloor boards--

Toward education marriage nervous breakdown, operation, teaching school,
and learning to be mad, in a dream--what is this life?

Toward the Key in the window--and the great Key lays its head of light
on top of Manhattan, and over the floor, and lays down on the
sidewalk--in a single vast beam, moving, as I walk down First toward
the Yiddish Theater--and the place of poverty

you knew, and I know, but without caring now--Strange to have moved
thru Paterson, and the West, and Europe and here again,

with the cries of Spaniards now in the doorstops doors and dark boys on
the street, firs escapes old as you

--Tho you're not old now, that's left here with me--

Myself, anyhow, maybe as old as the universe--and I guess that dies with
us--enough to cancel all that comes--What came is gone forever
every time-


That's good!That leaves it open for no regret--no fear radiators, lacklove,
torture even toothache in the end--

Though while it comes it is a lion that eats the soul--and the lamb, the soul,


in us, alas, offering itself in sacrifice to change's fierce hunger--hair
and teeth--and the roar of bonepain, skull bare, break rib, rot-skin,
braintricked Implacability.


Ai! ai!we do worse! We are in a fix!And you're out, Death let you out,
Death had the Mercy, you're done with your century, done with
God, done with the path thru it--Done with yourself at last--Pure
--Back to the Babe dark before your Father, before us all--before the
world--

There, rest.No more suffering for you.I know where you've gone, it's good.

No more flowers in the summer fields of New York, no joy now, no more
fear of Louis,

and no more of his sweetness and glasses, his high school decades, debts,
loves, frightened telephone calls, conception beds, relatives, hands--

No more of sister Elanor,--she gone before you--we kept it secret you
killed her--or she killed herself to bear with you--an arthritic heart
--But Death's killed you both--No matter--

Nor your memory of your mother, 1915 tears in silent movies weeks and
weeks--forgetting, agrieve watching Marie Dressler address humanity,
Chaplin dance in youth,

or Boris Godunov, Chaliapin's at the Met, halling his voice of a weeping Czar
--by standing room with Elanor & Max--watching also the Capital
ists take seats in Orchestra, white furs, diamonds,

with the YPSL's hitch-hiking thru Pennsylvania, in black baggy gym skirts
pants, photograph of 4 girls holding each other round the waste, and
laughing eye, too coy, virginal solitude of 1920

all girls grown old, or dead now, and that long hair in the grave--lucky to
have husbands later--

You made it--I came too--Eugene my brother before (still grieving now and
will gream on to his last stiff hand, as he goes thru his cancer--or kill
--later perhaps--soon he will think--)

And it's the last moment I remember, which I see them all, thru myself, now
--tho not you

I didn't foresee what you felt--what more hideous gape of bad mouth came
first--to you--and were you prepared?

To go where?In that Dark--that--in that God? a radiance? A Lord in the
Void?Like an eye in the black cloud in a dream?Adonoi at last, with
you?

Beyond my remembrance! Incapable to guess! Not merely the yellow skull
in the grave, or a box of worm dust, and a stained ribbon--Deathshead
with Halo?can you believe it?

Is it only the sun that shines once for the mind, only the flash of existence,
than none ever was?

Nothing beyond what we have--what you had--that so pitiful--yet Triumph,


to have been here, and changed, like a tree, broken, or flower--fed to the
ground--but made, with its petals, colored, thinking Great Universe,
shaken, cut in the head, leaf stript, hid in an egg crate hospital, cloth
wrapped, sore--freaked in the moon brain, Naughtless.

No flower like that flower, which knew itself in the garden, and fought the
knife--lost

Cut down by an idiot Snowman's icy--even in the Spring--strange ghost
thought some--Death--Sharp icicle in his hand--crowned with old


roses--a dog for his eyes--cock of a sweatshop--heart of electric
irons.


All the accumulations of life, that wear us out--clocks, bodies, consciousness,
shoes, breasts--begotten sons--your Communism--'Paranoia' into
hospitals.

You once kicked Elanor in the leg, she died of heart failure later.You of
stroke.Asleep?within a year, the two of you, sisters in death.Is
Elanor happy?

Max grieves alive in an office on Lower Broadway, lone large mustache over
midnight Accountings, not sure.His life passes--as he sees--and
what does he doubt now?Still dream of making money, or that might
have made money, hired nurse, had children, found even your Immortality,
Naomi?

I'll see him soon.Now I've got to cut through to talk to you as I didn't
when you had a mouth.
Forever.And we're bound for that, Forever like Emily Dickinson's horses
--headed to the End.
They know the way--These Steeds--run faster than we think--it's our own
life they cross--and take with them.

Magnificent, mourned no more, marred of heart, mind behind, married
dreamed, mortal changed--Ass and face done with murder.
In the world, given, flower maddened, made no Utopia, shut under
pine, almed in Earth, blamed in Lone, Jehovah, accept.

Nameless, One Faced, Forever beyond me, beginningless, endless,
Father in death.Tho I am not there for this Prophecy, I am unmarried, I'm
hymnless, I'm Heavenless, headless in blisshood I would still adore

Thee, Heaven, after Death, only One blessed in Nothingness, not
light or darkness, Dayless Eternity-Take
this, this Psalm, from me, burst from my hand in a day, some
of my Time, now given to Nothing--to praise Thee--But Death

This is the end, the redemption from Wilderness, way for the Wonderer,
House sought for All, black handkerchief washed clean by weeping
--page beyond Psalm--Last change of mine and Naomi--to God's perfect
Darkness--Death, stay thy phantoms!

II
Over and over--refrain--of the Hospitals--still haven't written your
history--leave it abstract--a few images
run thru the mind--like the saxophone chorus of houses and years-remembrance
of electrical shocks.
By long nites as a child in Paterson apartment, watching over your
nervousness--you were fat--your next move-


By that afternoon I stayed home from school to take care of you-once
and for all--when I vowed forever that once man disagreed with my
opinion of the cosmos, I was lost-


By my later burden--vow to illuminate mankind--this is release of
particulars--(mad as you)--(sanity a trick of agreement)-But
you stared out the window on the Broadway Church corner, and
spied a mystical assassin from Newark,
So phoned the Doctor--'OK go way for a rest'--so I put on my coat
and walked you downstreet--On the way a grammarschool boy screamed,


unaccountably--'Where you goin Lady to Death'? I shuddered-


and you covered your nose with motheaten fur collar, gas mask
against poison sneaked into downtown atmosphere, sprayed by Grandma-


And was the driver of the cheesebox Public Service bus a member of
the gang?You shuddered at his face, I could hardly get you on--to New
York, very Times Square, to grab another Greyhound--

Kral Majales (King of May)

And the Communists have nothing to offer but fat cheeks and eyeglasses and
lying policemen
and the Capitalists proffer Napalm and money in green suitcases to the
Naked,
and the Communists create heavy industry but the heart is also heavy
and the beautiful engineers are all dead, the secret technicians conspire for
their own glamour
in the Future, in the Future, but now drink vodka and lament the Security
Forces,
and the Capitalists drink gin and whiskey on airplanes but let Indian brown
millions starve
and when Communist and Capitalist assholes tangle the Just man is arrested
or robbed or has his head cut off,
but not like Kabir, and the cigarette cough of the Just man above the clouds
in the bright sunshine is a salute to the health of the blue sky.
For I was arrested thrice in Prague, once for singing drunk on Narodni
street,
once knocked down on the midnight pavement by a mustached agent who
screamed out BOUZERANT,
once for losing my notebooks of unusual sex politics dream opinions,
and I was sent from Havana by planes by detectives in green uniform,
and I was sent from Prague by plane by detectives in Czechoslovakian
business suits,
Cardplayers out of Cezanne, the two strange dolls that entered Joseph K's
room at morn
also entered mine and ate at my table, and examined my scribbles,
and followed me night and morn from the houses of the lovers to the cafes of
Centrum -
And I am the King of May, which is the power of sexual youth,
and I am the King of May, which is long hair of Adam and Beard of my
own body
and I am the King of May, which is Kral Majales in the Czechoslovakian
tongue,
and I am the King of May, which is old Human poesy, and 100,000 people
chose my name,
and I am the King of May, and in a few minutes I will land at London
Airport,
and I am the King of May, naturally, for I am of Slavic parentage and a
Buddhist Jew
who whorships the Sacred Heart of Christ the blue body of Krishna the
straight back of Ram
the beads of Chango the Nigerian singing Shiva Shiva in a manner which
I have invented,
and the King of May is a middleeuropean honor, mine in the XX century
despite space ships and the Time Machine, because I have heard the voice of Blake
in a vision
and repeat that voice. And I am the King of May that sleeps with teenagers
laughing.
And I am the King of May, that I may be expelled from my Kingdom with
Honor, as of old,
To show the difference between Caesar's Kingdom and the Kingdom of the
May of Man



and I am the King of May because I touched my finger to my forehead
saluting
a luminous heavy girl trembling hands who said 'one moment Mr. Ginsberg'
before a fat young Plainclothesman stepped between our bodies - I was
going to England and
I am the King of May, in a giant jetplane touching Albion's airfield
trembling in fear
as the plane roars to a landing on the gray concrete, shakes & expels air,
and rolls slowly to a stop under the clouds with part of blue heaven still
visible.
And tho' I am the King of May, the Marxists have beat me upon the street,
kept me up all night in Police Station, followed me thru Springtime
Prague, detained me in secret and deported me from our kingdom by
airplane.
This I have written this poem on a jet seat in mid Heaven.

Hospital Window

At gauzy dusk, thin haze like cigarette smoke
ribbons past Chrysler Building's silver fins
tapering delicately needletopped, Empire State's
taller antenna filmed milky lit amid blocks
black and white apartmenting veil'd sky over Manhattan,
offices new built dark glassed in blueish heaven--The East
50's & 60's covered with castles & watertowers, seven storied
tar-topped house-banks over York Avenue, late may-green trees
surrounding Rockefellers' blue domed medical arbor--
Geodesic science at the waters edge--Cars running up
East River Drive, & parked at N.Y. Hospital's oval door
where perfect tulips flower the health of a thousand sick souls
trembling inside hospital rooms. Triboro bridge steel-spiked
penthouse orange roofs, sunset tinges the river and in a few
Bronx windows, some magnesium vapor brilliances're
spotted five floors above E 59th St under grey painted bridge
trestles. Way downstream along the river, as Monet saw Thames
100 years ago, Con Edison smokestacks 14th street,
& Brooklyn Bridge's skeined dim in modern mists--
Pipes sticking up to sky nine smokestacks huge visible--

U.N. Building hangs under an orange crane, & red lights on
vertical avenues below the trees turn green at the nod
of a skull with a mild nerve ache. Dim dharma, I return
to this spectacle after weeks of poisoned lassitude, my thighs
belly chest & arms covered with poxied welts,
head pains fading back of the neck, right eyebrow cheek
mouth paralyzed--from taking the wrong medicine, sweated
too much in the forehead helpless, covered my rage from
gorge to prostate with grinding jaw and tightening anus
not released the weeping scream of horror at robot Mayaguez
World self ton billions metal grief unloaded
Pnom Penh to Nakon Thanom, Santiago & Tehran.
Fresh warm breeze in the window, day's release
>from pain, cars float downside the bridge trestle
and uncounted building-wall windows multiplied a mile
deep into ash-delicate sky beguile
my empty mind. A seagull passes alone wings
spread silent over roofs.

Haiku (Never Published)

Drinking my tea
Without sugarNo
difference.

The sparrow shits
upside down
--ah! my brain & eggs

Mayan head in a
Pacific driftwood bole
--Someday I'll live in N.Y.

Looking over my shoulder
my behind was covered
with cherry blossoms.

Winter Haiku
I didn't know the names
of the flowers--now
my garden is gone.

I slapped the mosquito
and missed.
What made me do that?


Reading haiku
I am unhappy,
longing for the Nameless.


A frog floating
in the drugstore jar:
summer rain on grey pavements.


(after Shiki)

On the porch
in my shorts;
auto lights in the rain.


Another year
has past-the world
is no different.


The first thing I looked for
in my old garden was
The Cherry Tree.


My old desk:
the first thing I looked for
in my house.


My early journal:
the first thing I found



in my old desk.


My mother's ghost:
the first thing I found
in the living room.


I quit shaving
but the eyes that glanced at me
remained in the mirror.


The madman
emerges from the movies:
the street at lunchtime.


Cities of boys
are in their graves,
and in this town...


Lying on my side
in the void:
the breath in my nose.


On the fifteenth floor
the dog chews a bone-
Screech of taxicabs.


A hardon in New York,
a boy
in San Fransisco.


The moon over the roof,
worms in the garden.
I rent this house.


[Haiku composed in the backyard cottage at 1624
Milvia Street, Berkeley 1955, while reading R.H.
Blyth's 4 volumes, "Haiku."]

Death & Fame

When I die

I don't care what happens to my body

throw ashes in the air, scatter 'em in East River

bury an urn in Elizabeth New Jersey, B'nai Israel Cemetery

But l want a big funeral

St. Patrick's Cathedral, St. Mark's Church, the largest synagogue in
Manhattan

First, there's family, brother, nephews, spry aged Edith stepmother
96, Aunt Honey from old Newark,

Doctor Joel, cousin Mindy, brother Gene one eyed one ear'd, sisterin-
law blonde Connie, five nephews, stepbrothers & sisters
their grandchildren,

companion Peter Orlovsky, caretakers Rosenthal & Hale, Bill Morgan--

Next, teacher Trungpa Vajracharya's ghost mind, Gelek Rinpoche,
there Sakyong Mipham, Dalai Lama alert, chance visiting
America, Satchitananda Swami

Shivananda, Dehorahava Baba, Karmapa XVI, Dudjom Rinpoche,
Katagiri & Suzuki Roshi's phantoms

Baker, Whalen, Daido Loorie, Qwong, Frail White-haired Kapleau
Roshis, Lama Tarchen --

Then, most important, lovers over half-century

Dozens, a hundred, more, older fellows bald & rich

young boys met naked recently in bed, crowds surprised to see each
other, innumerable, intimate, exchanging memories

"He taught me to meditate, now I'm an old veteran of the thousand
day retreat --"

"I played music on subway platforms, I'm straight but loved him he
loved me"

"I felt more love from him at 19 than ever from anyone"

"We'd lie under covers gossip, read my poetry, hug & kiss belly to belly
arms round each other"

"I'd always get into his bed with underwear on & by morning my
skivvies would be on the floor"

"Japanese, always wanted take it up my bum with a master"

"We'd talk all night about Kerouac & Cassady sit Buddhalike then
sleep in his captain's bed."

"He seemed to need so much affection, a shame not to make him happy"

"I was lonely never in bed nude with anyone before, he was so gentle my
stomach

shuddered when he traced his finger along my abdomen nipple to hips-- "

"All I did was lay back eyes closed, he'd bring me to come with mouth
& fingers along my waist"

"He gave great head"

So there be gossip from loves of 1948, ghost of Neal Cassady commingling
with flesh and youthful blood of 1997

and surprise -- "You too? But I thought you were straight!"

"I am but Ginsberg an exception, for some reason he pleased me."

"I forgot whether I was straight gay queer or funny, was myself, tender
and affectionate to be kissed on the top of my head,

my forehead throat heart & solar plexus, mid-belly. on my prick,
tickled with his tongue my behind"

"I loved the way he'd recite 'But at my back allways hear/ time's winged


chariot hurrying near,' heads together, eye to eye, on a

pillow --"

Among lovers one handsome youth straggling the rear

"I studied his poetry class, 17 year-old kid, ran some errands to his
walk-up flat,

seduced me didn't want to, made me come, went home, never saw him
again never wanted to... "

"He couldn't get it up but loved me," "A clean old man." "He made
sure I came first"

This the crowd most surprised proud at ceremonial place of honor--

Then poets & musicians -- college boys' grunge bands -- age-old rock
star Beatles, faithful guitar accompanists, gay classical conductors,
unknown high Jazz music composers, funky trumpeters,
bowed bass & french horn black geniuses, folksinger
fiddlers with dobro tamborine harmonica mandolin autoharp
pennywhistles & kazoos

Next, artist Italian romantic realists schooled in mystic 60's India,
Late fauve Tuscan painter-poets, Classic draftsman Massachusets
surreal jackanapes with continental wives, poverty
sketchbook gesso oil watercolor masters from American
provinces

Then highschool teachers, lonely Irish librarians, delicate bibliophiles,
sex liberation troops nay armies, ladies of either sex

"I met him dozens of times he never remembered my name I loved
him anyway, true artist"

"Nervous breakdown after menopause, his poetry humor saved me
from suicide hospitals"

"Charmant, genius with modest manners, washed sink, dishes my
studio guest a week in Budapest"

Thousands of readers, "Howl changed my life in Libertyville Illinois"

"I saw him read Montclair State Teachers College decided be a poet-- "

"He turned me on, I started with garage rock sang my songs in Kansas
City"

"Kaddish made me weep for myself & father alive in Nevada City"

"Father Death comforted me when my sister died Boston l982"

"I read what he said in a newsmagazine, blew my mind, realized
others like me out there"

Deaf & Dumb bards with hand signing quick brilliant gestures

Then Journalists, editors's secretaries, agents, portraitists & photography
aficionados, rock critics, cultured laborors, cultural
historians come to witness the historic funeral

Super-fans, poetasters, aging Beatnicks & Deadheads, autographhunters,
distinguished paparazzi, intelligent gawkers

Everyone knew they were part of 'History" except the deceased

who never knew exactly what was happening even when I was alive

February 22, 1997

Death & Fame

When I die

I don't care what happens to my body

throw ashes in the air, scatter 'em in East River

bury an urn in Elizabeth New Jersey, B'nai Israel Cemetery

But l want a big funeral

St. Patrick's Cathedral, St. Mark's Church, the largest synagogue in
Manhattan

First, there's family, brother, nephews, spry aged Edith stepmother
96, Aunt Honey from old Newark,

Doctor Joel, cousin Mindy, brother Gene one eyed one ear'd, sisterin-
law blonde Connie, five nephews, stepbrothers & sisters
their grandchildren,

companion Peter Orlovsky, caretakers Rosenthal & Hale, Bill Morgan--

Next, teacher Trungpa Vajracharya's ghost mind, Gelek Rinpoche,
there Sakyong Mipham, Dalai Lama alert, chance visiting
America, Satchitananda Swami

Shivananda, Dehorahava Baba, Karmapa XVI, Dudjom Rinpoche,
Katagiri & Suzuki Roshi's phantoms

Baker, Whalen, Daido Loorie, Qwong, Frail White-haired Kapleau
Roshis, Lama Tarchen --

Then, most important, lovers over half-century

Dozens, a hundred, more, older fellows bald & rich

young boys met naked recently in bed, crowds surprised to see each
other, innumerable, intimate, exchanging memories

"He taught me to meditate, now I'm an old veteran of the thousand
day retreat --"

"I played music on subway platforms, I'm straight but loved him he
loved me"

"I felt more love from him at 19 than ever from anyone"

"We'd lie under covers gossip, read my poetry, hug & kiss belly to belly
arms round each other"

"I'd always get into his bed with underwear on & by morning my
skivvies would be on the floor"

"Japanese, always wanted take it up my bum with a master"

"We'd talk all night about Kerouac & Cassady sit Buddhalike then
sleep in his captain's bed."

"He seemed to need so much affection, a shame not to make him happy"

"I was lonely never in bed nude with anyone before, he was so gentle my
stomach

shuddered when he traced his finger along my abdomen nipple to hips-- "

"All I did was lay back eyes closed, he'd bring me to come with mouth
& fingers along my waist"

"He gave great head"

So there be gossip from loves of 1948, ghost of Neal Cassady commingling
with flesh and youthful blood of 1997

and surprise -- "You too? But I thought you were straight!"

"I am but Ginsberg an exception, for some reason he pleased me."

"I forgot whether I was straight gay queer or funny, was myself, tender
and affectionate to be kissed on the top of my head,

my forehead throat heart & solar plexus, mid-belly. on my prick,
tickled with his tongue my behind"

"I loved the way he'd recite 'But at my back allways hear/ time's winged


chariot hurrying near,' heads together, eye to eye, on a

pillow --"

Among lovers one handsome youth straggling the rear

"I studied his poetry class, 17 year-old kid, ran some errands to his
walk-up flat,

seduced me didn't want to, made me come, went home, never saw him
again never wanted to... "

"He couldn't get it up but loved me," "A clean old man." "He made
sure I came first"

This the crowd most surprised proud at ceremonial place of honor--

Then poets & musicians -- college boys' grunge bands -- age-old rock
star Beatles, faithful guitar accompanists, gay classical conductors,
unknown high Jazz music composers, funky trumpeters,
bowed bass & french horn black geniuses, folksinger
fiddlers with dobro tamborine harmonica mandolin autoharp
pennywhistles & kazoos

Next, artist Italian romantic realists schooled in mystic 60's India,
Late fauve Tuscan painter-poets, Classic draftsman Massachusets
surreal jackanapes with continental wives, poverty
sketchbook gesso oil watercolor masters from American
provinces

Then highschool teachers, lonely Irish librarians, delicate bibliophiles,
sex liberation troops nay armies, ladies of either sex

"I met him dozens of times he never remembered my name I loved
him anyway, true artist"

"Nervous breakdown after menopause, his poetry humor saved me
from suicide hospitals"

"Charmant, genius with modest manners, washed sink, dishes my
studio guest a week in Budapest"

Thousands of readers, "Howl changed my life in Libertyville Illinois"

"I saw him read Montclair State Teachers College decided be a poet-- "

"He turned me on, I started with garage rock sang my songs in Kansas
City"

"Kaddish made me weep for myself & father alive in Nevada City"

"Father Death comforted me when my sister died Boston l982"

"I read what he said in a newsmagazine, blew my mind, realized
others like me out there"

Deaf & Dumb bards with hand signing quick brilliant gestures

Then Journalists, editors's secretaries, agents, portraitists & photography
aficionados, rock critics, cultured laborors, cultural
historians come to witness the historic funeral

Super-fans, poetasters, aging Beatnicks & Deadheads, autographhunters,
distinguished paparazzi, intelligent gawkers

Everyone knew they were part of 'History" except the deceased

who never knew exactly what was happening even when I was alive

February 22, 1997

Feb. 29, 1958

Last nite I dreamed of T.S. Eliot
welcoming me to the land of dream
Sofas couches fog in England
Tea in his digs Chelsea rainbows
curtains on his windows, fog seeping in
the chimney but a nice warm house
and an incredibly sweet hooknosed
Eliot he loved me, put me up,
gave me a couch to sleep on,
conversed kindly, took me serious
asked my opinion on Mayakovsky
I read him Corso Creeley Kerouac
advised Burroughs Olson Huncke
the bearded lady in the Zoo, the
intelligent puma in Mexico City
6 chorus boys from Zanzibar
who chanted in wornout polygot
Swahili, and the rippling rythyms
of Ma Rainey and Vachel Lindsay.
On the Isle of the Queen
we had a long evening's conversation
Then he tucked me in my long
red underwear under a silken
blanket by the fire on the sofa
gave me English Hottie
and went off sadly to his bed,
Saying ah Ginsberg I am glad
to have met a fine young man like you.
At last, I woke ashamed of myself.
Is he that good and kind? Am I that great?
What's my motive dreaming his
manna? What English Department
would that impress? What failure
to be perfect prophet's made up here?
I dream of my kindness to T.S. Eliot
wanting to be a historical poet
and share in his finance of Imageryoverambitious
dream of eccentric boy.
God forbid my evil dreams come true.
Last nite I dreamed of Allen Ginsberg.

T.S. Eliot would've been ashamed of me.

Cezanne's Ports

In the foreground we see time and life
swept in a race
toward the left hand side of the picture
where shore meets shore.


But that meeting place
isn't represented;
it doesn't occur on the canvas.


For the other side of the bay
is Heaven and Eternity,
with a bleak white haze over its mountains.


And the immense water of L'Estaque is a go-between
for minute rowboats.

Cezanne's Ports

In the foreground we see time and life
swept in a race
toward the left hand side of the picture
where shore meets shore.


But that meeting place
isn't represented;
it doesn't occur on the canvas.


For the other side of the bay
is Heaven and Eternity,
with a bleak white haze over its mountains.


And the immense water of L'Estaque is a go-between
for minute rowboats.

Cosmopolitan Greetings

Stand up against governments, against God.
Stay irresponsible.
Say only what we know & imagine.
Absolutes are Coercion.
Change is absolute.
Ordinary mind includes eternal perceptions.
Observe what’s vivid.
Notice what you notice.
Catch yourself thinking.
Vividness is self-selecting.
If we don’t show anyone, we’re free to write anything.
Remember the future.
Freedom costs little in the U.S.
Asvise only myself.
Don’t drink yourself to death.
Two molecules clanking us against each other require an observer to become
scientific data.
The measuring instrument determines the appearance of the phenomenal
world (after Einstein).
The universe is subjective..
Walt Whitman celebrated Person.
We are observer, measuring instrument, eye, subject, Person.
Universe is Person.
Inside skull is vast as outside skull.
What’s in between thoughts?
Mind is outer space.
What do we say to ourselves in bed at night, making no sound?
“First thought, best thought.”
Mind is shapely, Art is shapely.
Maximum information, minimum number of syllables.
Syntax condensed, sound is solid.
Intense fragments of spoken idiom, best.
Move with rhythm, roll with vowels.
Consonants around vowels make sense.
Savour vowels, appreciate consonants.
Subject is known by what she sees.
Others can measure their vision by what we see.
Candour ends paranoia.

A Desolaltion

Now mind is clear
as a cloudless sky.
Time then to make a
home in wilderness.

What have I done but
wander with my eyes
in the trees? So I
will build: wife,
family, and seek
for neighbors.

Or I
perish of lonesomeness
or want of food or
lightning or the bear
(must tame the hart
and wear the bear).

And maybe make an image
of my wandering, a little
image—shrine by the
roadside to signify
to traveler that I live
here in the wilderness
awake and at home.

An Asphodel

O dear sweet rosy
unattainable desire
...how sad, no way
to change the mad
cultivated asphodel, the
visible reality...

and skin's appalling
petals--how inspired
to be so Iying in the living
room drunk naked
and dreaming, in the absence
of electricity...
over and over eating the low root
of the asphodel,
gray fate...

rolling in generation
on the flowery couch
as on a bank in Arden-my
only rose tonite's the treat
of my own nudity.

The Sun

O Sun! The world's essence and motivator you are
The organizer of the book of the world you are

The splendor of existence has been created by you
The verdure of the garden of existence depends on you

The spectacle of elements is maintained by you
The exigency of life in all is maintained by you

Your appearance confers stability on everything
Your illumination and concord is completion of life

You are the sun which establishes light in the world
Which establishes heart, intellect, essence and wisdom

O Sun! Bestow on us the light of wisdom
Bestow your luster's light on the intellect's eye

You are the decorator of necessaries of existence' assemblage
You are the Yazdan of the denizens of the high and the low

Your excellence is reflected from every living thing
The mountain range also shows your elegance

You are the sustainer of the life of all
You are the king of the light's children

There is no beginning and no end of yours
Free of limits of time is the light of yours

The One I Was Searching For On the Earth and in Heaven

The one I was searching for on the earth and in heaven
Appeared residing in the recesses of my own heart


When the reality of the self became evident to my eyes
The house appeared among residents of my own heart


If it were somewhat familiar with taste of rubbing foreheads
The stone of Ka’ba’s threshold would have joined the foreheads


O Majnun! Have you ever glanced at yourself
That like Layla you are also sitting in the litter


The months of the union continue flying like moments
But the moments of separation linger for months!


O seaman, how will you protect me from being drowned
As those destined to drowning get drowned in the boats also


The one who concealed His Beauty from Kalim Allah
The same Beloved is manifest among beloveds


The breath of Lovers can light up the extinguished candle
O God! What is kept concealed in the breast of the Lovers?


Serve the fakirs if you have the longing for Love
This pearl is not available in the treasures of kings


Do not ask of these Devotees, if you have faith, you should look at them
They have the illuminated palm up their sleeves


The insightful eye for whose spectacle is tantalized
That elegance of congregation is in these very recluses


Burn the produce of your heart with some such spark
That the Last Day’s sun may also be among your gleaners


For Love search for some heart which would become mortified
This is the wine which is not kept in delicate wine glasses


The Beauty itself becomes the Lover of whose Beauty
O Heart! Does someone among the beautiful has that beauty?


Someone became highly excited at your grace of Ma’arafna
Your rank remained among the most elegant of all the Lovers


Manifest Thyself and show them Thy Beauty some time
Talks have continued among the sagacious since long time


Silent, O Heart! Crying in the full assembly is not good
Decorum is the most important etiquette among the ways of Love


It is not possible for me to deem my critics bad



Because Iqbal, I am myself among my critics

The One I Was Searching For On the Earth and in Heaven

The one I was searching for on the earth and in heaven
Appeared residing in the recesses of my own heart


When the reality of the self became evident to my eyes
The house appeared among residents of my own heart


If it were somewhat familiar with taste of rubbing foreheads
The stone of Ka’ba’s threshold would have joined the foreheads


O Majnun! Have you ever glanced at yourself
That like Layla you are also sitting in the litter


The months of the union continue flying like moments
But the moments of separation linger for months!


O seaman, how will you protect me from being drowned
As those destined to drowning get drowned in the boats also


The one who concealed His Beauty from Kalim Allah
The same Beloved is manifest among beloveds


The breath of Lovers can light up the extinguished candle
O God! What is kept concealed in the breast of the Lovers?


Serve the fakirs if you have the longing for Love
This pearl is not available in the treasures of kings


Do not ask of these Devotees, if you have faith, you should look at them
They have the illuminated palm up their sleeves


The insightful eye for whose spectacle is tantalized
That elegance of congregation is in these very recluses


Burn the produce of your heart with some such spark
That the Last Day’s sun may also be among your gleaners


For Love search for some heart which would become mortified
This is the wine which is not kept in delicate wine glasses


The Beauty itself becomes the Lover of whose Beauty
O Heart! Does someone among the beautiful has that beauty?


Someone became highly excited at your grace of Ma’arafna
Your rank remained among the most elegant of all the Lovers


Manifest Thyself and show them Thy Beauty some time
Talks have continued among the sagacious since long time


Silent, O Heart! Crying in the full assembly is not good
Decorum is the most important etiquette among the ways of Love


It is not possible for me to deem my critics bad



Because Iqbal, I am myself among my critics

The Intellect And The Heart

One day Intellect said to the heart
'A guide to the misguided ones I am

Being on the earth I reach up to the sky
Look, how deep in comprehension I am

Guidance on earth is my sole occupation
Like the auspicious Khidr 1 in character I am

Interpreter of the book of life I am
The Manifestation of God's Glory I am

You are only a dropp of blood, but
The invaluable ruby's envy I am'

Hearing this the heart said, 'All this is true
But look at me as well, what I am

You understand the secrets of life
But seeing them with my own eyes I am

Concerned with the manifest order you are
And acquainted with the inward I am

Learning is from you, but Divine Knowledge is from me
You only seek Divinity, but showing Divinity I am

Restlessness is the end of Knowledge 2
But the remedy for that malady I am

You are the candle of the assembly of Truth
The lamp of the Divine Beauty's assemblage I am

You are related to time and space
The bird recognizing the Sidrah 3 I am

Look at the grandeur of my station
The throne of the God of Majesty I am

The Morning Sun

Far from the ignoble strife of Man's tavern you are
The wine-cup adorning the sky's assemblage you are

The jewel which should be the pearl of the morning's bride's ear you are
The ornament which would be the pride of horizon's forehead you are

The blot of night's ink from time's page has been removed!
The star from sky like a spurious picture has been removed!

When from the roof of the sky your beauty appears
Effect of sleep's wine suddenly from eyes disappears

Perception's expanse gets filled with light
Though opens only the material eye your light

The spectacle which the eyes seek is desired
The effulgence which would open the insight is desired

The desires for freedom were not fulfilled in this life
We remained imprisoned in chains of dependence all life

The high and the low are alike for your eye
I too have longing for such a discerning eye

May my eye shedding tears in sympathy for others' woes be!
May my heart free from the prejudice of nation and customs be!

May my tongue be not bound with discrimination of color
May mankind be my nation, the whole world my country be

May secret of Nature's organization clear to my insight be
May smoke of my imagination's candle rising to the sky be

May search for secrets of opposites not make me restless!
May the Love-creating Beauty in everything appear to me!

If the rose petals get damaged by the breeze
May its pain dropping from my eye as a tear be

May the heart contain that little spark of Love's fire
The light of which may contain the secret of the Truth

May my heart not mine but the Beloved's mirror be!
May no thought in my mind except human sympathy be!

If you cannot endure the hardships of the tumultuous world
O the Great Luminary that is not the mark of greatness!

As you are not aware of your world-decorating beauty
You cannot be equal to a speck of dust at the Man's door!

The light of Man eager for the Spectacle ever remained


And you obligated to the tomorrow's morning ever remained

Longing for the Light of the Truth is only in our hearts
Abode of Lailah of desire for search is only in this litter
Opening of the difficult knot, Oh what a pleasure it is!

The pleasure of universal gain in our endless effort is!

Your bosom is unacquainted with the pain of investigation
You are not familiar with searching of the secrets of Nature

First Date Tree Saeeded By Abdul Rahman The Firs

You are the apple of my eye,
My heart's delight:
I am remote from my valley,
To me you are the Burning Bush of Sinai!
You are a houri of the Arabian Desert,
Nursed by the Western breeze.
I feel homesick in exile,
You feel homesick in exile:


Prosper in this strange land!
May the morning dew quench your thirst!


The world presents a strange sight:
The vision's mantle is torn apart—
May valour struggle with the waves if it must,
The other side of the river is not to be seen!
Life owes itself to the heat of one's soul:
Flame does not rise from dust.
The Syrian evening's fallen star
Shined brighter in the exile's dawn.


There are no frontiers for the Man of Faith,
He is at home everywhere.


[Translated by the Editors]


*
That blood of pristine vigour is no more;
That yearning heart's power is no more;
Prayer, fasting, hajj, sacrifice survive,
But in thee nature's old dower is no more.


[Translated by Naim Siddiqui]


Not: These verses from Abdul Rahman the First
are quoted in Tarikh al Muqqari. The
following Urdu poem is a liberal
translation (the tree mentioned here was
planted in Madinatut Zahra)

Jawab-e-Shik


Whatever comes out of the heart is effective
It has no wings but has the power of flight

It has holy origins, it aims at elegance
It rises from dust, but has access to the celestial world

My love was seditious, rebellious and clever
My fearless wailing rent through the sky


On hearing it the sun said, 'Somewhere there is somebody! '
The planets said, 'At the 'Arsh-i-Bar

The goat replied, 'This complaint is unjust


Though truth is always bitter
I shall speak what is fair
This pasture, and this cool breeze


This green grass and this shade


Such comforts, were beyond our lot!
They were a far cry for us speechless poor!
We owe these pleasures to Man


We owe all our happiness to Man


We derive all our prosperity from him
What is better for us, freedom or bondage to him?
Hundreds of dangers lurk in the wilderness


May God protect us from the wilderness!


We are heavily indebted to him
Unjust is our complaint against him
If you appreciate the life's comforts


You would never complain against Man'


Hearing all this the cow felt embarrassed
She was sorry for complaining against Man
She mused over the good and the bad


And thoughtfully she said this


'Small though is the body of the goat
Convincing is the advice of the goat! '

When You Thought Me Poor

When you thought me poor,
my poverty was shaming.
When blackness was unwelcome
we found it best
that I stay home.


When by the miracle
of fierce dreaming and hard work
Life fulfilled our every want
you found me crassly
well off;
not trimly,
inconspicuously wealthy
like your rich friends.


Still black too,
now
I owned too much and too many
of everything.


Woe is me: I became a
success! Blackness, who
knows how?
Became suddenly
in!


What to do?
Now that Fate appears
(for the moment anyhow)
to have dismissed
abject failure
in any case?
Now that moonlight and night
have blessed me.


Now that the sun
unaffected by criticism
of any sort,
implacably beams
the kiss filled magic that creates
the dark and radiant wonder
of my face.

When You Thought Me Poor

When you thought me poor,
my poverty was shaming.
When blackness was unwelcome
we found it best
that I stay home.


When by the miracle
of fierce dreaming and hard work
Life fulfilled our every want
you found me crassly
well off;
not trimly,
inconspicuously wealthy
like your rich friends.


Still black too,
now
I owned too much and too many
of everything.


Woe is me: I became a
success! Blackness, who
knows how?
Became suddenly
in!


What to do?
Now that Fate appears
(for the moment anyhow)
to have dismissed
abject failure
in any case?
Now that moonlight and night
have blessed me.


Now that the sun
unaffected by criticism
of any sort,
implacably beams
the kiss filled magic that creates
the dark and radiant wonder
of my face.

Turning Madness Into Flowers #1

If my sorrow were deeper
I'd be, along with you, under
the ocean's floor;
but today I learn that the oil
that pools beneath the ocean floor
is essence
residue
remains
of all our
relations
all
our ancestors who have died and turned to oil
without our witness
eons ago.
We've always belonged to them.
Speaking for you, hanging, weeping, over the water's edge
as well as for myself.
It is our grief
heavy, relentless,
trudging
us, however resistant,
to the decaying and rotten
bottom of things:
our grief bringing
us home.