Dk Poetry Slam/Open Mic! Howl Celebration!

Welcome to the Dk PSlam.  Find a table or sit on the floor, come up to the mic and share your own works or those of your heroes.

Tonight we join the celebration of the 50th anniversary of the publication of Allen Ginsberg's Howl and Other Poems'  The poem itself was a groundbreaking work, and the arrest and trial of its publisher, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, resulted in a landmark decision by the Judge, throwing open the gates to free speech and free expression.   It was not the end of censorship,  Lenny Bruce was harrassed to death by the authorities, for cussing, until he died in 1966,
and students launched the Free Speech movement with massive campus protests in the 1960's.  

'Howl' also marked the birth of the Beats, who brought poetry back to the streets, blew the lid off rhyme and meter, and made poems more like Jazz.  

Let's Celebrate Howl tonight, and other poems, stories and songs!

From City Lights

After Allen Ginsberg's reading of "Howl" on October 6, 1955 at the Six Gallery in San Francisco, Lawrence Ferlinghetti sent him a note, repeating Emerson's message to Whitman upon reading Leaves of Grass: "I greet you at the beginning of a great career." But Ferlinghetti added a line: "When do I get the manuscript?

(snip)

The first part of Howl presents a picture of a nightmare world; the second part is an indictment of those elements in modern society destructive of
the best qualities of human nature; such elements are predominantly identified as materialism, conformity, and mechanization leading toward war. The third part
presents a picture of an individual who is a specific representation of what the author conceives as a general condition. . . . `Footnote to Howl' seems to be a
declamation that everything in the world is holy, including parts of the body by name. It ends in a plea for holy living. . . ."

I will open with the last part:

Footnote To Howl by Allen Ginsberg

Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy!
Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy!
The world is holy! The soul is holy! The skin is holy!
The nose is holy! The tongue and cock and hand
and asshole holy!
Everything is holy! everybody's holy! everywhere is
holy! everyday is in eternity! Everyman's an
angel!
The bum's as holy as the seraphim! the madman is
holy as you my soul are holy!
The typewriter is holy the poem is holy the voice is
holy the hearers are holy the ecstasy is holy!
Holy Peter holy Allen holy Solomon holy Lucien holy
Kerouac holy Huncke holy Burroughs holy Cas-
sady holy the unknown buggered and suffering
beggars holy the hideous human angels!
Holy my mother in the insane asylum! Holy the cocks
of the grandfathers of Kansas!
Holy the groaning saxophone! Holy the bop
apocalypse! Holy the jazzbands marijuana
hipsters peace & junk & drums!
Holy the solitudes of skyscrapers and pavements! Holy
the cafeterias filled with the millions! Holy the
mysterious rivers of tears under the streets!
Holy the lone juggernaut! Holy the vast lamb of the
middle class! Holy the crazy shepherds of rebell-
ion! Who digs Los Angeles IS Los Angeles!
Holy New York Holy San Francisco Holy Peoria &
Seattle Holy Paris Holy Tangiers Holy Moscow
Holy Istanbul!
Holy time in eternity holy eternity in time holy the
clocks in space holy the fourth dimension holy
the fifth International holy the Angel in Moloch!
Holy the sea holy the desert holy the railroad holy the
locomotive holy the visions holy the hallucina-
tions holy the miracles holy the eyeball holy the
abyss!
Holy forgiveness! mercy! charity! faith! Holy! Ours!
bodies! suffering! magnanimity!
Holy the supernatural extra brilliant intelligent
kindness of the soul!

Berkeley 1955

•  The Tip Jar

  as always, is at the foot of the mic.

  by x on Sat Dec 30, 2006 at 06:59:05 PM PDT

  •  Well done x!

    You can smile now! : ) I love the choice of the footnote from Howl, because that is less often seen. It is still so relevant to right now. We could sure use a lot more of that holiness and kindness of the soul to help cure the woes of our world.

    by cosmic debris on Sat Dec 30, 2006 at 07:06:33 PM PDT

    •  Yes,

      that was my thinking too.  Everyone has heard the first line, but even I didn't remember the Footnote.  It really wraps the poem up in a positive way.

      by x on Sat Dec 30, 2006 at 07:14:04 PM PDT

      •  For anyone in the SF area

        Here is a City Lights
        Howl event on Jan 4th.
        

        by x on Sat Dec 30, 2006 at 08:18:06 PM PDT

        •  Free MP3 of Ginsberg reading Howl

          Courtesy NPR

          Scroll down to "Ginsberg Reads".

          by PeaceNerd on Sat Dec 30, 2006 at 09:40:23 PM PDT

          •  Wow! Thanks, PeaceNerd.

            I'll save that.

            by x on Sat Dec 30, 2006 at 09:44:21 PM PDT

  •  Howl..

    one of my favorite aspects of this monumental poem is that, while it portrays and American nightmare reality of the 1950s, it ends on a note of somber hopefulness...

    I'm with you in Rockland in my dreams you walk dripping from a sea- journey on the highway across America in tears
    to the door of my cottage in the Western night

    ...pure genius...

    by Darrell J Gahm on Sat Dec 30, 2006 at 07:14:07 PM PDT

    •  Carl Solomon

      From a post at Literary Kicks, by Levi Asher Solomon, born on March 30, 1928 in the Bronx, is mainly famous for having inspired the poem "Howl", rather than for any achievements of his own. He and Ginsberg met in a waiting room at a psychiatric hospital where Ginsberg was visiting his mother. Solomon was a regular there. Despite his mental problems he had a hyperactive intelligence, and was able to instruct Ginsberg (not exactly a dummy himself) on many literary points, despite the fact that Ginsberg was two years older.

      
      

      by x on Sat Dec 30, 2006 at 08:06:24 PM PDT

•  By special request...

  Auld Lang Syne
  by Robert "Rabbie" Burns, 1759-1796

  Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
  And never brought to mind?
  Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
  And auld lang syne!

  For auld lang syne, my jo,
  For auld lang syne,
  We'll tak a cup o' kindness yet
  For auld lang syne.

  And surely you'll be your pint stoup,
  And surely I'll be mine,
  And we'll tak a cup o' kindness yet
  For auld lang syne!

  For auld lang syne, my jo,
  For auld lang syne,
  We'll tak a cup o' kindness yet
  For auld lang syne.

  We twa hae ran about the braes,
  And pou'd the gowans fine,
  But we've wander'd monie a weary fit
  Sin' auld lang syne.

  For auld lang syne, my jo,
  For auld lang syne,
  We'll tak a cup o' kindness yet
  For auld lang syne.

  We twa hae paidl'd in the burn
  Frae morning sun til dine,
  But seas between us braid hae roar'd
  Sin' auld lang syne.

  For auld lang syne, my jo,
  For auld lang syne,
  We'll tak a cup o' kindness yet
  For auld lang syne.

  And there's a hand, my trusty fiere,
  And gie's a hand o' thine,
  And we'll tak a right gude-willie waught
  For auld lang syne!

  For auld lang syne, my jo,
  For auld lang syne,
  We'll tak a cup o' kindness yet
  For auld lang syne.

  
  Burns Cottage - Alloway, Scotland

  (Translation)
  Should old acquaintances be forgotten
  And never be remembered?
  Should old acquaintances be forgotten
  and days long ago.

  For days long ago, my dear,
  For days long ago
  We'll drink a cup of kindness yet
  For days long ago!

  And surely you'll have your pint tankard
  And surely I'll have mine.
  And we'll drink a cup of kindness yet
  For days long ago.

  We two have run about the hills
  And pulled the daisies fine
  But we've wandered many a weary mile
  Since the days long ago.

  We two have paddled in the stream
  From morning sun till dinner-time
  But the broad seas have roared between us
  Since the days long ago.

  And here's my hand, my trusty friend,
  And give me your hand too,
  And we will take an excellent good-will drink
  For the days of long ago.
  
  Burns Cottage replica, Alloway Place, Atlanta, GA
  (Constructed by the Burns Club of Atlanta in 1911)

  Cheers, my friends.

  by Caldonia on Sat Dec 30, 2006 at 07:00:42 PM PDT

  •  Thank you, Caldonia!

    I love that old song.  Thanks for bringing it.

    Here's to friends, auld & new!

    Happy New Year!

    by x on Sat Dec 30, 2006 at 07:11:49 PM PDT

•  On meeting Allen Ginsberg

  Back in the early winter of 1981 when I was a freshman in college, Ginsberg came to my campus to give a reading. It wasn’t held in the large auditorium, but instead the gathering took place downstairs in the library. It was a small and intimate affair. At that time I was more familiar with Ginsberg as a political activist than I was with his poetry and that is what drew me to attend.

  He was wearing a white suit with tie and his hair was thinned, his dome bald and shining. His famous beard was well trimmed and neat. What I remember best of his visage were his giant eyes, magnified further by massive thick glasses, making him appear to be a wise old owl. He spoke to us of his activism with regard to nuclear disarmament. Reagan had just been elected President and the long Cold War appeared to be heating up with the President’s strong rhetoric against the "Evil Empire".

  Then Allen read some poetry, the most memorable being the Plutonian Ode. As I listened I remembered thinking, "ahhh, so this is what poetry is about." My English teachers in high  school, never got that across to me, that rhythm, that passion, that relevance. Chaucer, Pope, Shelley, Thoreau and even Whitman and Blake, the latter two who so influenced Ginsberg, never had inspired me as interpreted and spoken by my crusty distracted professors. They never had sparked my soul the way this man did. He was authentic, a real bard and visionary, and he opened my eyes and heart to a whole new art form, to which I have been a devotee to this day. Poetry became alive - breathing, beating, tasting and smelling, all senses employed kind of thing for me. It became an essential thing, a life thing.

  Within a few weeks after Ginsberg’s visitation, I joined a group of students in a sit-in at the Administration building where we insisted the school divest itself of its investments in Apartheid South Africa. We sat, we chanted, we sang, we banged hand-drums and we read Ginsberg and other Beat poetry aloud. We eventually won them over. So thank you Allen Ginsberg, you wise owl and guru of delight, for being a teacher in the best sense of the word, for waking me up and inspiring me to action. Thank you for your Howl, the sound of which reverberates in the souls of all rebels, geniuses and madmen, the souls of all those demanding freedom, to this day.

  by cosmic debris on Sat Dec 30, 2006 at 07:04:09 PM PDT

  •  I offer your ...

    ... one rec and one jillion snaps for this comment!

    by Nightprowlkitty on Sat Dec 30, 2006 at 07:10:02 PM PDT

  •  Great story, CD!

    Allen was a real eye opener. Heart & soul opener too.

    by x on Sat Dec 30, 2006 at 07:15:39 PM PDT

•  Allen

  Allen, with giant daisies,
  Allen, with dooms of loving Neale,
  Allen, with glad Jack jokery,
  Allen, with naked glee reading,
  Allen, with buddha belly bouncing,
  Allen, with Orlofsky loveydoveys,

  with voice of mad rabbi
  with san francisco typewriters
  and grocery store epiphanies
  under fluorescent lights
  in produce aisles

  with sad mama kaddish
  and mistaken girlfriends,
  with moroccos of hashish
  and acids of leary
  singing in the park.

  Howl, Allen, your
  voice reverberates still
  in the dark corridors
  of America.

  Done on the spot, as all beat stuff is ...

  by Nightprowlkitty on Sat Dec 30, 2006 at 07:08:19 PM PDT

  •  Great tribute

    to Ginsberg and to so many of his great poems! Here is a pic I found on the tubes of the mad genius at work; I believe working on Howl itself:

    

    by cosmic debris on Sat Dec 30, 2006 at 07:19:32 PM PDT

    •  I love that picture ...

      ... one of my favorites -- have a postcard of it.  Tonight is a wonderful night to have this picture up at Daily Kos.  Thanks, cd!

      by Nightprowlkitty on Sat Dec 30, 2006 at 07:21:13 PM PDT

    •  amazing photo..

      beautiful in its simplicity, amazing in its relevance...

      by Darrell J Gahm on Sat Dec 30, 2006 at 07:24:56 PM PDT

    •  Pere Ubu

      The 'Howl' backstory reminds me of how the play 'Pere Ubu' created such a storm of outrage in Paris at the turn of the 20th century.

      The more things change...

      by x on Sat Dec 30, 2006 at 09:24:17 PM PDT

  •  Excellent, NPK!

    On the spot & spot on!

    by x on Sat Dec 30, 2006 at 07:28:36 PM PDT

  •  i like this very much...

    especially this...

    with voice of mad rabbi
    with san francisco typewriters
    and grocery store epiphanies
    under fluorescent lights
    in produce aisles

    by Darrell J Gahm on Sat Dec 30, 2006 at 07:51:31 PM PDT

•  A song/poem

  In the 80’s Ginsberg performed it on stage with The Clash. He traveled through all the countercultural movements of his age from the Beats to the Folkies to the Hippies to the Punks and even to the New Agers. One could say, actually, that he was a nucleus and perhaps even a catalyst for all these movements. His spirit and activism were that strong.

  Capitol Air

  I don’t like the government where I live
  I don’t like dictatorship of the Rich
  I don’t like bureaucrats telling me what to eat
  I don’t like Police dogs sniffing round my feet

  I don’t like Communist Censorship of my books
  I don’t like Marxists complaining about my looks
  I don’t like Castro insulting members of my sex
  Leftists insisting we got the mystic Fix

  I don’t like Capitalists selling me gasoline Coke
  Multinationals burning Amazon trees to smoke
  Big Corporation takeover media mind
  I don’t like the Top-bananas robbing Guatemala banks blind

  I don’t like K.G.B. Gulag concentration camps
  I don’t like the Maoists’ Cambodian Death Dance
  15 Million were killed by Stalin Secretary of Terror
  He has killed our old Red Revolution for ever

  I don’t like Anarchists screaming Love is Free
  I don’t like the C.I.A. they killed John Kennedy
  Paranoiac tanks sit in Prague and Hungary
  But I don’t like the counterrevolution paid for by the C.I.A.

  Tyranny in Turkey or Korea Nineteen Eighty
  I don’t like Right Wing Death Squad Democracy
  Police State Iran Nicaragua yesterday
  Laissez-faire please Government keep your secret police offa me

  I don’t like Nationalist Supremacy White or Black
  I don’t like Narcs & Mafia marketing Smack
  The General bullying Congress in his tweed vest
  The President building up his Armies in the East & West

  I don’t like Argentine police Jail torture Truths
  Government Terrorist takeover Salvador news
  I don’t like Zionists acting Nazi Storm Troop
  Palestine Liberation cooking Israel into Moslem soup

  I don’t like the Crown’s Official Secrets Act
  You can get away with murder in the Government that’s a fact
  Security cops teargassing radical kids
  In Switzerland or Czechoslovakia God Forbids

  In America it’s Attica in Russia it’s Lubianka Wall
  In China if you disappear you wouldn’t know yourself at all
  Arise Arise you citizens of the world use your lungs
  Talk back to the Tyrants all they’re afraid of is your tongues

  Two hundred Billion dollars inflates World War
  In United States every year They’re asking for more
  Russia’s got as much in tanks and laser planes
  Give or take Fifty Billion we can blow out everybody’s brains

  School’s broke down ‘cause History changes every night
  Half the Free World nations are Dictatorships of the Right
  The only place socialism worked was in Gdansk, Bud
  The Communist world’s stuck together with prisoners’ blood

  The Generals say they know something worth fighting for
  They never say what till they start and unjust war
  Iranian hostage Media Hysteria sucked
  The Shah ran away with 9 Billion Iranian bucks

  Kermit Roosevelt and his U.S. dollars overthrew Massadegh
  They wanted his oil then they got Ayatollah’s dreck
  They put in the Shah and they trained his police the Savak
  All Iran was our hostage quarter-century That’s right Jack

  Bishop Romero wrote President Carter to stop
  Sending guns to El Salvador’s Junta so he got shot
  Ambassador White blew the whistle on the White House lies
  Reagan called him home cause he looked in the dead nuns’ eyes

  Half the voters didn’t vote they knew it was too late
  Newspaper headlines called it a big Mandate
  Some people voted for Reagan eyes open wide
  3 out of 4 didn’t vote for him That’s a Landslide

  Truth may be hard to find but Falsehood’s easy
  Read between the lines our Imperialism is sleazy
  But if you think the People’s State is your Heart’s Desire
  Jump right back in the frying pan from the fire

  The System the System in Russia & China the same
  Criticize the System in Budapest lose your name
  Coca Cola Pepsi Cola in Russia & China come true
  Khrushchev yelled in Hollywood "We will bury You"

  America and Russia want to bomb themselves Okay
  Everybody dead on both sides   Everybody pray
  All except the Generals in caves where they can hide
  And fuck each other in the ass waiting for the next free ride

  No hope Communism no hope Capitalism Yeah
  Everybody’s lying on both sides Nyeah nyeah nyeah
  The bloody iron curtain of American Military Power
  Is a mirror image of Russia’s red Babel-Tower

  Jesus Chris was spotless but was Crucified by the Mob
  Law & Order Herod’s hired soldiers did the job
  Flowerpower’s fine but innocence has got no Protection
  The man who shot John Lennon had a Hero-worshipper’s connection

  The moral of this song is that the world is in a horrible place
  Scientific Industry devours the human race
  Police in every country armed with Teat Gas & TV
  Secret Masters everywhere bureaucratize for you & me

  Terrorists and police together build a lowerclass Rage
  Propaganda murder manipulates the upperclass Stage
  Can’t tell the difference ‘tween a turkey & a provocateur
  If you’re felling confused the Government’s in there for sure

  Aware Aware wherever you are     No Fear
  Trust your heat Don’t ride your Paranoia dear
  Breathe together with an ordinary mind
  Armed with Humor Feed & Help Enlighten   Woe Mankind
  
  Frankfurt-New York, December 15, 1980

  From: Plutonian Ode and other poems. City Lights Press, 1978.

  by cosmic debris on Sat Dec 30, 2006 at 07:09:46 PM PDT

  •  Too cool!

    I would love to see a video of that.  

    by x on Sat Dec 30, 2006 at 07:32:56 PM PDT

    •  I looked on Youtube

      but it was not to be found : (  There is a recording of it though, on DVD. Ginsberg also performed on one of the Clash albums as a backup noise maker.

      Here is a cool one though, Ginsberg with McCartney doing Ballad of the Skeletons

      by cosmic debris on Sat Dec 30, 2006 at 07:46:31 PM PDT

      •  Oh, I love that!

        Excellent!  There must be some great videos around of Allen.  A compilation would be awesome.

        by x on Sat Dec 30, 2006 at 07:56:01 PM PDT

        •  If you haven't seen this

          Pull My Daisy you must! It is about a half hour long and is a film about the beats in the 50's with Ginsberg, Corso and Orlovsky playing themselves. Kerouac narrates and the roles of other beats are played by actors. Ginsberg is hysterically funny in this. You really get the sense of his silliness. : )

          by cosmic debris on Sat Dec 30, 2006 at 07:59:25 PM PDT

          •  I'll watch it tomorrow

            Thanks!  I know it'll be a howl, lol!

            by x on Sat Dec 30, 2006 at 08:59:09 PM PDT

•  I'm working on new stuff...

  ...but my illness has been doing a job on me.

  by rserven on Sat Dec 30, 2006 at 07:10:02 PM PDT

  •  I hope ...

    ... you feel better soon, rserven ... and will look forward to hearing your new stuff.

    by Nightprowlkitty on Sat Dec 30, 2006 at 07:11:41 PM PDT

  •  Get well soon, Robyn.

    Sucks to be sick on New Years.  Take care.

    by x on Sat Dec 30, 2006 at 09:29:56 PM PDT

•  one of my own...

  inspired by a late night reading of "Howl"...

  guttural growl and howl

  I stand on an forgotten street corner letting loose a guttural howl,
  a growl at destroyed minds, starving and hysterical minds,
  minds without the beat of jazz banging back in their brains,
  minds without the written line read, not even once or twice,
  minds wrinkled by pixilated flashing colors and sounds,
  minds numbed by us versus them macho posturing,
  body slammed head-locked chair to the face minds,
  these are the worst of the best of my generation,
  the artists, poets, writers, minstrels scream frustration,
  honing crafts generally ignored....AND FOR WHAT??

  FOR NOTHING AND NO ONE!

  no one except themselves and the others also screaming in vain,
  searching the streets for scraps, tiny slivers of hope,
  hope that someday, somehow, america will awaken,
  rise like a noble beast from its fitful slumber,
  hoping it will shake the dirt from its tired eyes,
  seeking RELIEF from mundane existence,
  seeking SOLACE in creation,
  seeking RELEASE in real reality,
  seeking SATIATION from its HUNGER!
  a hunger that burns deep in the beast’s bellies,
  millions of bellies no longer satisfied with mind numbing SLOP!
  a growing hunger, spreading over the body and mind and SOUL of the beast,
  simultaneously, millions of television sets will EXPLODE!
  explode in response to the energy and anger and fear and driving, blinding madness,
  madness, starving, hysterical madness, driving words and song and brush,
  but, for now, that lumbering beast is content to sleep, to dream,
  dream back to different days, days now long gone,
  days when an artist, a writer, a poet could be HEARD
  and listened to, not screaming in vain over the incessant hum
  of fast food cardboard disposable culture slung endlessly by uncaring
  corporate gods, dragging whatever rotted carcass they can sink their claws into
  to feed to the chirping mindless numbed and dumbed down masses,
  so, the poets, the writers, the artists, the songsters, they all crawl back to their holes,
  a futile honing their of craft, over and over and over again,
  hoping, dreaming, wanting, needing to someday
  wake the beast from its deathly slumber.

  Darrell J. Gahm
  April 10, 2006

  by Darrell J Gahm on Sat Dec 30, 2006 at 07:10:14 PM PDT

  •  Yep. n/t

    by x on Sat Dec 30, 2006 at 07:43:52 PM PDT

  •  They ...

               WILL!

    by Caneel on Sun Dec 31, 2006 at 11:48:25 AM PDT

•  its cold out, lets go the tropics

  "besame" says she

  strolling along the playa
  warm water laps at our feet
  a warmer sun is browning our bodies

  "besame mucho"  she says

  i unentwine my hands from hers
  slowly rubbing it across a bare shoulder
  my fingers disappear into
  a cascade of thick black hair

  "besame" "besame mucho"  says she

  after a meal of pescado rojo
  and two or three cervezas negras
  we stroll along the playa
  warm water at our feet
  and a warming sun on our bodies

  "besame" "besame" "besame mucho" she says

  kiss me again and again and again
  and then guess what?

  kiss me one more time      

  by blklikeme on Sat Dec 30, 2006 at 07:23:25 PM PDT

  •  Go to the tropics... Great Idea!

    Being in Mexico at the end of the 1984 Mexico Yacht Season (read pre-hurricane season) I got a job helping ferry private yachts from Banderas Bay to San Diego.

    It was quite a learning experience. One of the good ones... where you learn more about yourself then you do about other people or other things.

    Here's two poems I wrote started to write on that trip:

    be calm...ed

    Sailing’s like living it ain’t always fun
    Sometimes you just sit, but god sometimes you run.
    Most times you just cruise 'bout where you want to be
    Ain’t life just like being at sea.

    So when you’re just a sitting and having no fun
    Open up; look around at the moon and the sun.
    All the stars in the sky, all the life (you and me)
    Is there really another place you’d rather be?

    ©1984 - Steve Krome

    .

    Cedros Island Blues

    Another island to go ‘round, many more miles to get down
    But the wind and the water say no
    Other places I’d be ‘stead a stuck in a lee
    On the west side of old Mexico.

    There’s Marie’s in Ixtapa... my heart’s in Yalapa
    But right now that’s so far away.
    ‘Cause these 20 foot seas they just do what they please.
    Isla Cedros is where we will stay.

    ©1984 - Steve Krome

    Started but not finished. Both need either more or less when I figure out which... they'll be done.

    Maybe they're not finished because it's been twenty-four years since I've been in warm salt water. Maybe I'll take a grandkid.

    Steve

    by SteveK on Sat Dec 30, 2006 at 08:11:13 PM PDT

•  From my very favorite

  It is a very long poem, so I will only post a section of it...

  From The Sunflower Sutra

  Look at the Sunflower, he said, there was a dead gray shadow against the sky, big as a man, sitting dry on top of a pile of ancient sawdust--

  --I rushed up enchanted--it was my first sunflower, memories of Blake--my visions--Harlem

  and Hells of the Eastern rivers, bridges clanking Joes greasy Sandwiches, dead baby carriages, black treadless tires forgotten and unretreaded, the poem of the riverbank, condoms & pots, steel knives, nothing stainless, only the dank muck and the razor-sharp artifacts passing into the past--

  and the gray Sunflower poised against the sunset, crackly bleak and dusty with the smut and smog and smoke of olden locomotives in its eye--

  corolla of bleary spikes pushed down and broken like a battered crown, seeds fallen out of its face, soon-to-be-toothless mouth of sunny air, sunrays obliterated on its hairy head like a dried wire spiderweb,

  leaves stuck out like arms out of the stem, gestures from the sawdust root, broke pieces of plaster fallen out of the black twigs, a dead fly in its ear,

  Unholy battered old thing you were, my sunflower O my soul, I loved you then!

  The grime was no man's grime but death and human locomotives,

  all that dress of dust, that veil of darkened railroad skin, that smog of cheek, that eyelid of black mis'ry, that sooty hand or phallus or protuberance of artificial worse-than-dirt--industrial--modern--all that civilization spotting your crazy golden crown--

  and those blear thoughts of death and dusty loveless eyes and ends and withered roots below, in the home-pile of sand and sawdust, rubber dollar bills, skin of machinery, the guts and innards of the weeping coughing car, the empty lonely tincans with their rusty tongues alack, what more could I name, the smoked ashes of some cock cigar, the cunts of wheelbarrows and the milky breasts of cars, wornout asses out of chairs & sphincters of dynamos--all these

  entangled in your mummied roots--and you standing before me in the sunset, all your glory in your form!

  A perfect beauty of a sunflower! a perfect excellent lovely sunflower existence! a sweet natural eye to the new hip moon, woke up alive and excited grasping in the sunset shadow sunrise golden monthly breeze!

  How many flies buzzed round you innocent of your grime, while you cursed the heavens of your railroad and your flower soul?

  Poor dead flower? when did you forget you were a flower? when did you look at your skin and decide you were an impotent dirty old locomotive? the ghost of a locomotive? the specter and shade of a once powerful mad American locomotive?

  You were never no locomotive, Sunflower, you were a sunflower!

  And you Locomotive, you are a locomotive, forget me not!

  ~Allen Ginsberg~

  by cosmic debris on Sat Dec 30, 2006 at 07:26:04 PM PDT

  •  sutra...

    We're not our skin of grime, we're not our dread
    bleak dusty imageless locomotive, we're all
    beautiful golden sunflowers inside, we're bles-
    sed by our own seed golden hairy naked ac-
    complishment-bodies growing into mad black
    formal sunflowers in the sunset, spied on by our
    eyes under the shadow of the mad locomotive
    riverbank sunset Frisco hilly tincan evening sit-
    down vision.

    oh yeah yeah...

    (to quote Buk)

    by Darrell J Gahm on Sat Dec 30, 2006 at 07:32:10 PM PDT

    •  And the source of inspiration

      Ah Sunflower
       

      Ah Sunflower, weary of time,
      Who countest the steps of the sun;
      Seeking after that sweet golden clime
      Where the traveller's journey is done;

      Where the Youth pined away with desire,
      And the pale virgin shrouded in snow,
      Arise from their graves, and aspire
      Where my Sunflower wishes to go!

      ~William Blake~

      by cosmic debris on Sat Dec 30, 2006 at 07:36:48 PM PDT

•  another of mine...

  a bit more serious in nature...

  morning song

  there are few moments as pure
  as that first feeling in the early morning,
  when the sun breaks through the shades,
  casting long shadows across cotton sheets,
  before your brain thinks its first thought,
  when you sing that song of morning glory,
  from your bottom,
  which will almost always elicit a response
  from your mate,
  who is never as pleased, or impressed,
  by your mastery of the art form,
  of course, you can only smile,
  suppressing a laugh,
  at the deep bass tone of your
  bottom’s song,

  this is one of those few moments
  where your talents in tune
  cannot be matched,
  where you do not stifle your siren song,
  not like those times,
  at the dinner table,
  or in church,
  where you hold on for dear life,
  knowing that to sing now
  will only bring trouble,
  tainting the magic of the song,
  so, you softly whisper your tune,
  hoping no one will hear the echoes
  of your trailing note,

  that early morning song is all your own,
  and so very different from the songs
  shared with friends,
  sometimes after a night of drink,
  your song sneaks up on them,
  surprising them in its shocking simplicity,

  so, savor that first song of the day,
  crack that faint smile at its end,
  even as your mate gets up to leave the room,
  while your song fills the air.

  Darrell J. Gahm
  June 20, 2006

  by Darrell J Gahm on Sat Dec 30, 2006 at 07:30:26 PM PDT

  •  Nature is quite serious

    when it becomes explosive! I love this poem!! : )

    by cosmic debris on Sat Dec 30, 2006 at 07:34:14 PM PDT

    •  thanks...

      sometimes it helps to get a bit silly. LF surely knows that...

      by Darrell J Gahm on Sat Dec 30, 2006 at 07:35:15 PM PDT

  •  ewww. :) n/t

    by OLinda on Sat Dec 30, 2006 at 07:39:26 PM PDT

  •  Holy bottom song! LOL!

    by x on Sat Dec 30, 2006 at 07:42:38 PM PDT

•  Gotta have a Larry

  Wild Dreams of a New Beginning
   

  There's a breathless hush on the freeway tonight
  Beyond the ledges of concrete
  restaurants fall into dreams
  with candlelight couples
  Lost Alexandria still burns
  in a billion lightbulbs
  Lives cross lives
  idling at stoplights
  Beyond the cloverleaf turnoffs
  'Souls eat souls in the general emptiness'
  A piano concerto comes out a kitchen window
  A yogi speaks at Ojai
  'It's all taking pace in one mind'
  On the lawn among the trees
  lovers are listening
  for the master to tell them they are one
  with the universe
  Eyes smell flowers and become them
  There's a deathless hush
  on the freeway tonight
  as a Pacific tidal wave a mile high
  sweeps in
  Los Angeles breathes its last gas
  and sinks into the sea like the Titanic all lights lit
  Nine minutes later Willa Cather's Nebraska
  sinks with it
  The sea comes over in Utah
  Mormon tabernacles washed away like barnacles
  Coyotes are confounded & swim nowhere
  An orchestra onstage in Omaha
  keeps on playing Handel's Water Music
  Horns fill with water
  ans bass players float away on their instruments
  clutching them like lovers horizontal
  Chicago's Loop becomes a rollercoaster
  Skyscrapers filled like water glasses
  Great Lakes mixed with Buddhist brine
  Great Books watered down in Evanston
  Milwaukee beer topped with sea foam
  Beau Fleuve of Buffalo suddenly become salt
  Manhatten Island swept clean in sixteen seconds
  buried masts of Amsterdam arise
  as the great wave sweeps on Eastward
  to wash away over-age Camembert Europe
  manhatta steaming in sea-vines
  the washed land awakes again to wilderness
  the only sound a vast thrumming of crickets
  a cry of seabirds high over
  in empty eternity
  as the Hudson retakes its thickets
  and Indians reclaim their canoes

  Lawrence Ferlinghetti

  (swiped from Poemhunter.com)

  by cosmic debris on Sat Dec 30, 2006 at 07:41:02 PM PDT

  •  Another Larry

    Was it you who posted it in another thread, CD?  I'd forgotten about it, & I'm an old time Band freak.  I knew every frame of that flick, before they airbrushed the chunk of coke out of Niel's nose & after, LOL!  

    Loud Prayer
    by Lawrence Ferlinghetti

    Our father whose art's in heaven
    hollow be thy name
    unless things change
    Thy wigdom come and gone
    thy will will be undone
    on earth as it isn't heaven
    Give us this day our daily bread
    at least three times a day
    and forgive us our trespasses
    as we would forgive those lovelies
    whom we wish would trespass against us
    And lead us not into temptation
    too often on weekdays
    but deliver us from evil
    whose presence remains unexplained
    in thy kingdom of power and glory
    oh man

    by x on Sat Dec 30, 2006 at 08:43:37 PM PDT

    •  The last time I saw

      The Last Waltz it was played on my local PBS station without any commercial breaks and I danced the entire time!!! I should buy that film!

      I don't think I posted LF's wonderful sermon, but I can never get enough of it. Oh Man indeed!

      Hey! Great job tonight sistah. I wish you a very very wonderful New Years Eve and I just know we will all make the coming year a better one. I look forward to another excellent year of blogging with you and the Dkos community. We will overcome this bushista bullshit, I am certain of it!

      Besides, we have the most excellent guardian angels who ever were... a whole pantheon of wild poet spirits!

      by cosmic debris on Sat Dec 30, 2006 at 08:51:02 PM PDT

      •  Backatcha, sistah!

        We did a lot of damage to the Bushistas this year, & we'll do better in '07!

        by x on Sat Dec 30, 2006 at 09:02:17 PM PDT

•  another of my own...

  written yesterday, on the anniversary of the massacre at Wounded Knee...

  wounded

  there, on the snowy South Dakota plain
  the final bullets fell
  into the great spirit of the native man
  with secrets left to tell
  was silenced by the Hotchkiss guns
  turning driven snow to red
  the spirit of the native lands
  to the great white beast was fed
  women, children frozen flesh
  forever lost to time
  the rattling of the Hotchkiss guns
  foretold the white man’s crime.

  Darrell J Gahm
  December 29, 2006

  by Darrell J Gahm on Sat Dec 30, 2006 at 07:45:07 PM PDT

  •  Beautiful D

    You capture the tragedy and sadness and there is a haunting silence in spite of the rat a tat tat of those guns

    by cosmic debris on Sat Dec 30, 2006 at 07:49:05 PM PDT

•  I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed

  by madness...

  That phrase stuck with me for a long time.

  by NNadir on Sat Dec 30, 2006 at 07:53:50 PM PDT

  •  Song

    Song
    by Allen Ginsberg   

    The weight of the world
    is love.
    Under the burden
    of solitude,
    under the burden
    of dissatisfaction
    the weight,
    the weight we carry
    is love.
    Who can deny?
    In dreams
    it touches
    the body,
    in thought
    constructs
    a miracle,
    in imagination
    anguishes
    till born
    in human--
    looks out of the heart
    burning with purity--
    for the burden of life
    is love,
    but we carry the weight
    wearily,
    and so must rest
    in the arms of love
    at last,
    must rest in the arms
    of love.
    No rest
    without love,
    no sleep
    without dreams
    of love--
    be mad or chill
    obsessed with angels
    or machines,
    the final wish
    is love
    --cannot be bitter,
    cannot deny,
    cannot withhold
    if denied:
    the weight is too heavy
    --must give
    for no return
    as thought
    is given
    in solitude
    in all the excellence
    of its excess.
    The warm bodies
    shine together
    in the darkness,
    the hand moves
    to the center
    of the flesh,
    the skin trembles
    in happiness
    and the soul comes
    joyful to the eye--
    yes, yes,
    that's what
    I wanted,
    I always wanted,
    I always wanted,
    to return
    to the body
    where I was born.

    by x on Sat Dec 30, 2006 at 09:42:08 PM PDT

•  Equations

  
  
                   Equations

  Abstraction is a double edged sword.
  Throwing a glance your way now and then
  I sit here thinking about numbers.

  And I wonder, if any equation that could explain
  the universe, and your little part of it,
  would be just as complicated as you and it.

  Watching you watching TV, sipping wine
  and licking the rim of the glass,
  for a moment I think I have you figured out.

  All the numbers add up under the line,
  tying you up in a simple knot.
  And somehow I'm sad that they do.

  With the ephemeral TV-light caressing your face
  you turn to me, and very deliberately,
  like you were speaking to a child,
  you say: "It's not all supposed to make sense."

  And all my numbers drop to the floor;

  and you're a riddle all over again;
  like your skin is simply something that keeps
  all your contradictions from falling apart.
  
  

  by Alexander G Rubio on Sat Dec 30, 2006 at 07:53:52 PM PDT

  •  wow...

    I really like this one, and can certainly relate...

    you say: "It's not all supposed to make sense."

    by Darrell J Gahm on Sat Dec 30, 2006 at 07:56:50 PM PDT

  •  Double wow

    This is brilliant AG Rubio!

    by cosmic debris on Sat Dec 30, 2006 at 08:00:13 PM PDT

    •  Aaaawww

      Now you've gone and made me blush. :D

      by Alexander G Rubio on Sat Dec 30, 2006 at 08:11:11 PM PDT

    •  Faust on the Beach

      This is another one from the same volume I'll have done... some time. Wrote the last book before it in three weeks. This one is going on a decade...
      
      

                   Faust on the Beach

      From scraps I conjure up this image:
      The impossibly sharp shadows of passing clouds
      gliding like giant hands over your body
      soaking sun on the warm rocks.

      Crucified on amino-acids I try to recreate
      the water, the rocks and your brown skin
      shining with sun-block and droplets of brine
      refracted through the soft-focus of the mind.

      Perhaps this is the way all ghosts are created?
      Because we long for them.
      And from these remnants I try to conjure you,

      flesh from thought, like Dr. Faust,
      always searching for that one perfect moment,
      and finding it already past.
      
      

      by Alexander G Rubio on Sat Dec 30, 2006 at 08:16:01 PM PDT

      •  Another wonderful poem

        I love the impossible description of the clouds, impossibly sharp shadows....

        You clearly need to hustle butt and finish the next volume! : ) You are a fantastic writer!

        by cosmic debris on Sat Dec 30, 2006 at 08:23:17 PM PDT

        •  Again, thank you.

          And I'll try to... hustle... ;)

          by Alexander G Rubio on Sat Dec 30, 2006 at 08:25:26 PM PDT

  •  Beautiful, AGR.

    I like it a lot.  

    by x on Sat Dec 30, 2006 at 08:01:07 PM PDT

•  One by one of my favorite locals

  
  a walk with madmen of death and desire
  a smoke of storm like constitution rips
  through my mind as the cold night air
  numbs my flesh, my soul, my mind
  and buk sits on my shoulder with a drunken
  macho swagger, whispering words of dead love
  and miraculous beer bottles, fighting for space
  between my ears with billy burroughs,
  trying to convince me of heroin’s power and
  the demise of stalins and hitlers and mad despotic powers,
  and allen tells tales of supermarket trips and
  long gone shoppers of poetic genius and madness,
  jello, good old jello biafra, shouts of anger and insanity
  and lily white privilege and fake liberal sensitivities to
  the plight of the poor and desperate, as I walk through
  poor and desperate streets, glancing sideways at those
  I pass, never taking more than a few seconds to take them in,
  never giving them the chance to take me into their worlds,
  and bobby frost lectures me on choice and the paths we choose
  and chose and have not yet chosen,
  they clamber over and above each other,
  each wanting to fill that space between my ears,
  a space vacated by life and exhaustion and cold, cold
  desperation on a cold and desperate night,
  and ernesto, good old ernie hemingway, remains strangely silent,
  or maybe not so strangely silent, for it is hard to be heard
  when your brains decorate the walls of our memories,
  in more ways than one,
  and I am numb, my flesh is numb, from the voices,
  those voices of brilliance and madness and death -
  for these voices are dead or dying –
  fill my ears with their dying words, their dead words,
  but I keep listening, even if others will not,
  for those words live on in my fragile soul,
  their words drive me forward,
  and with each step, I move closer to home,
  and closer to a sympathetic sadness
  for the loss of all great minds –
  for they all die eventually,
  one way or another,
  they all die,
  we all die...

  ~Darrell J. Gahm~
  January 1, 2006

  by cosmic debris on Sat Dec 30, 2006 at 08:05:05 PM PDT

•  Just visited a love of mine

  and this ee cummings poem comes to mind.......

  somewhere i have never travelled... (LVII)

  somewhere i have never travelled, gladly beyond
  any experience, your eyes have their silence:
  in your most frail gesture are things which enclose me,
  or which i cannot touch because they are too near

  your slightest look easily will unclose me
  though i have closed myself as fingers,
  you open always petal by petal myself as Spring opens
  (touching skilfully, mysteriously) her first rose

  or if your wish be to close me, i and
  my life will shut very beautifully, suddenly,
  as when the heart of this flower imagines
  the snow carefully everywhere descending;

  nothing we are to perceive in this world equals
  the power of your intense fragility: whose texture
  compels me with the colour of its countries,
  rendering death and forever with each breathing

  (i do not know what it is about you that closes
  and opens; only something in me understands
  the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses)
  nobody, not even the rain, has such small hands

  by AlyoshaKaramazov on Sat Dec 30, 2006 at 08:24:22 PM PDT

  •  Very lovely.

    It's quite a departure from what ee is most known for.

    Thanks for bringing it, AK.

    by x on Sat Dec 30, 2006 at 08:37:10 PM PDT

  •  Thanks for being the one to bring up ee tonight..

    This poem wass the only one of his poems that I tried to capture his imagery:

    Other People

    Then it came to me...  Memories of the days we spent together in the country.

    A man and a woman aching for each other... clinging together gasping in the long tall grass under the trees

    ...other People

    Steve Krome - 1983

    by SteveK on Sat Dec 30, 2006 at 08:37:49 PM PDT

  •  fantastic

    probably my favorite ee poem.  Woody Allen made great use of it (Hannah and Her Sisters).  It does seem hard to believe Woody didn't help with the small hands punchline.  Such perfect melding of psychic and natural imagery in a way that is playful, yet poignant. (touching skilfully, mysterious...)

    by muddydoggers on Sun Dec 31, 2006 at 02:12:35 AM PDT

•  Sal Bernardi

  Rickie Lee Jones made a heartbreaking song out of this:

  Beat Angels
  (Sal Bernardi)

  Beggin down these sun beaten streets
  I can't make for no connection
  Locals here don't speak no English
  Where is my woman, no one knows
  It seems some girls just have to leave in the night
  When you're fast asleep
  But I don't worry, I move in the dark
  There were lights, there were border lights
  I thought I heard a drum in the distance play
  I saw the light, I crossed my heart and beat angels were there

  I awoke in some hotel room
  Could hardly remember my name
  They were only sixteen years old
  I was so cold, I wast so ashamed
  If sometime I just have to leave
  In the night, when you're fast asleep
  Turn up your radio andI move in the dark
  There will be lights, there are border lights
  Thought I heard a drum in the distance play,
  I saw the lights
  Crossed my heart and beat angels were there

  You might wonder where one goes wrong
  It was somewhere in a foreign rain
  that sent him out to stone
  every lamplight in town
  Man don't know what he's got it his veins
  Until beat angels come take him away
  Play on beat angels

  
  

  by x on Sat Dec 30, 2006 at 09:10:03 PM PDT

•  Thanks for coming, y'all,

  & thanks for sharing all the great work.

  by x on Sat Dec 30, 2006 at 09:54:51 PM PDT

•  A King Soopers in Denver

  After choking down a cold, thick heap of oatmeal, Whitman’s "Calamus," I thought of the supermarket spree you envisioned with that old greybeard.

  One caffeine sleepless midnight, I drove us to King Soopers dreaming of your hallucinations.

  Whitman rode shotgun positive that he could tune the radio to pick up his poems from the aether, and Ginsberg, you sat cross-legged on the roof, exclaiming the names of the Holy old gang as you imagined the City Park sprinklers to be their phalluses shooting immaculate gyzyms all over the barren blades of grass.  I watched you show him the organic peppers and lettuces.

  I heard him ask you about pesticides and dead zones in the Great Lakes and the Mississippi, and you said America’s heart and arteries are clogged with chemical cholesterol.

  We rode a grocery clerk’s cart past the lobster tank like fine Phoenician warriors at sea. . And, Hart Crane, what were you doing in the syrup aisle?

  We wrote obscenities in the condensation on the butcher’s case, as the butcher waived a kielbasa in your face and laughed "It’s firm!"

  When I left, you were cooking meth in the prepared foods section, and he lay on the floor of the lotion aisle slathering himself with aloe, urging me to join him.

  Will you two wander all night under the florescent lights, reciting your unending lines to one another, taking turns on the store’s PA system?

  Where should I go? There is no closing time.

  Shall I surf the internet looking for love, home in my lonely apartment?

  And, now that Charon has left you on the banks of the Lethe, watching him pole his ferry?

  by muddydoggers on Sat Dec 30, 2006 at 10:15:27 PM PDT

  •  Heh

    pretty funny.

    A Supermarket in California
    by Allen Ginsberg    

    What thoughts I have of you tonight, Walt Whit-
    man, for I walked down the sidestreets under the trees
    with a headache self-conscious looking at the full moon.
    In my hungry fatigue, and shopping for images,
    I went into the neon fruit supermarket, dreaming of
    your enumerations!
    What peaches and what penumbras! Whole fam-
    ilies shopping at night! Aisles full of husbands! Wives
    in the avocados, babies in the tomatoes!--and you,
    Garcia Lorca, what were you doing down by the
    watermelons?
    I saw you, Walt Whitman, childless, lonely old
    grubber, poking among the meats in the refrigerator
    and eyeing the grocery boys.
    I heard you asking questions of each: Who killed
    the pork chops? What price bananas? Are you my
    Angel?
    I wandered in and out of the brilliant stacks of
    cans following you, and followed in my imagination
    by the store detective.
    We strode down the open corridors together in
    our solitary fancy tasting artichokes, possessing every
    frozen delicacy, and never passing the cashier.
    Where are we going, Walt Whitman? The doors
    close in an hour. Which way does your beard point
    tonight?
    (I touch your book and dream of our odyssey in the
    supermarket and feel absurd.)
    Will we walk all night through solitary streets?
    The trees add shade to shade, lights out in the houses,
    we'll both be lonely.
    Will we stroll dreaming ofthe lost America of love
    past blue automobiles in driveways, home to our silent
    cottage?
    Ah, dear father, graybeard, lonely old courage-
    teacher, what America did you have when Charon quit
    poling his ferry and you got out on a smoking bank
    and stood watching the boat disappear on the black
    waters of Lethe?

    There's a pretty funny take off on the WC Williams poem about the plums.

    by x on Sat Dec 30, 2006 at 10:27:12 PM PDT

    •  Super

      Glad to see it at least resembles Supermarket enough to bear the allusion.  Not to spoil the breakfast again, but not sure about the plums (Forgive me
      they were delicious
      so sweet
      and so cold)

      [forgive following pretense:  when writing, unintentional allusions appear ]

      by muddydoggers on Sun Dec 31, 2006 at 12:59:43 AM PDT

      •  This is just to say

        Sorry it's late, and I just figured out that you were referring to another poem that alludes to Williams "This is just to say."  Those great poems are waiting out there for hacks like me to bludgeon for sport.

        by muddydoggers on Sun Dec 31, 2006 at 01:23:28 AM PDT