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Reality Sandwiches: 1953-1960

Page 6

by Ginsberg, Allen


  old Last Chances that you knew before.

  -- someday thru the dream wall

  to nextdoor consciousness

  like thru this blue hotel wall

  -- millions of hotel rooms fogging

  the focus of my eyes --

  with whatever attitude I hold the cotton

  to my nose, it's still a secret joke

  with pinky akimbo, or with effete queer

  eye in mirror at myself,

  or serious-brow mein

  & darkened beard,

  I'm still the kid of obscene chance await-

  ing --

  breathing in a chinese Universe

  thru the nose like some old Brahamic God.

  O BELL TIME RING THY

  MIDNIGHT FOR THE BILLIONTH

  SOUNDY TIME, I HEAR AGAIN!

  I'll go to walk the street,

  Who'll find

  me in the night, in Lima, in my

  33'd year,

  On Street (Cont.)

  The souls of Peter &

  I answer each other.

  But -- and what's a soul?

  To be a poet's a

  serious occupation,

  condemned to that

  in universe --

  to walk the city

  ascribbling in

  a book -- just accosted

  by a drunk --

  in Plaza de Armas

  sidestreet under

  a foggy sky, and

  sometimes with no

  moon.

  The heavy balcony

  hangs over the white

  marble of the Bishop's

  Palace next the Cathedral --

  The fountain plays

  in light as e'er --

  The buss & the

  motorcyclists pass

  thru midnight, the

  carlights shine

  the beggar turns

  a corner with his

  cigarette stub &

  cane, the Noisers

  leave the tavern

  and delay, conversing

  in high voice,

  Awake,

  Hasta Manana

  they all say --

  and somewhere

  at the other end of

  the line, a telephone

  is ringing, once again

  with unknown news --

  The night

  looms over Lima,

  sky black fog --

  and I sit helpless

  smoking with a

  pencil hand --

  The long crack

  in the pavement

  or yesterday's

  Volcano in Chile,

  or the day before

  the Earthquake

  that begat the

  World.

  The Plaza pavement

  shines in the electric

  light. I wait.

  The lonely beard

  workman staggers

  home to bed from

  Death.

  Yes but I'm

  a little tired of

  being alone . . .

  Keats' Nightingale -- the

  instant of realization

  a single consciousness

  that hears the chimes

  of Time, repeated

  endlessly --

  All night, w/ Ether, wave

  after wave of magic

  understanding. A dis-

  turbance of the field

  of consciousness.

  Magic night, magic stars,

  magic men, magic music,

  magic tomorrow, magic death,

  magic Magic.

  What crude Magic

  we live in (seeing trolley

  like a rude monster

  in downtown street

  w/ electric diamond

  wire antennae to sky

  pass night café under

  white arc-light by

  Gran Hotel Bolivar.)

  The mad potter of

  Mochica made a

  pot w/ 6 Eyes & 2

  Mouths & half a Nose

  & 5 Cheeks & no Chin

  for us to figure out,

  serious side-track,

  blind alley Kosmos.

  (Back in Room)

  How the strange to remember anything, even a button

  much less a universe.

  'What creature gives birth to itself?'

  The universe is mad, slightly mad.

  -- and the two sides wriggle away

  in opposite directions to die

  lopped off

  the blind metallic length curled up

  feebly & wiggling its feet

  in the grass

  the millepede's black head moving inches away

  on the staircase at Macchu Picchu

  the Creature feels itself

  destroyed,

  head & tail of the universe

  cut in two.

  Men with slick mustaches of mystery have

  pimp horrible climaxes & Karmas --

  -- the mad magician that created Chaos

  in the peaceful void & suave.

  with my fucking suave manners & knowitall

  eyes, and mind full of fantasy --

  the Me! that horror that keeps me conscious

  in this Hell of Birth & Death.

  34 coming up -- I suddenly felt old -- sitting with

  Walter & Raquel in Chinese Restaurant -- they kissed -- I alone

  -- age of Burroughs when we first met.

  Hotel Commercio

  Lima, Peru

  May 28, 1960

  Table of Contents

  My Alba

  Sakyamuni Coming out from the Mountain

  The Green Automobile

  Havana

  Siesta in Xbalba

  On Burroughs' Work

  Love Poem on Theme By Whitman

  Over Kansas

  Malest Cornifici Tuo Catullo

  Dream Record

  Blessed be the muses

  Fragment 1956

  A Strange New Cottage in Berkeley

  Sather Gate Illumination

  Scribble

  Afternoon Seattle

  Psalm III

  Tears

  Ready To Roll

  Wrote This Last Night

  Squeal

  American Change

  'Back on Times Square, Dreaming of Times Square'

  My Sad Self

  Funny Death

  Battleship Newsreel

  I Beg You Come Back & Be Cheerful

  To An Old Poet in Peru

  Aether

 

 

 


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