Poems that I love

Allen, Phil (standing) and Wm Burroughs Peter and Allen in Paris Peter and Allen, well, au natural With You +1'd this publicly. Undo Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche and friends Oh, Allen did love getting naked. I wish I could discipher what is written on his modesty thing-a-ding. Handsome man! At the Triest, on Grant in North Beach. Listening. I guess that he could really listen too. America's poet? I'd vote yeah. Getting naked all around the world!

(Don't Grow Old, Part V) by Allen Ginsberg Hey Father Death, I'm flying home Hey poor man, you're all alone Hey old daddy, I know where I'm going Father Death, Don't cry any more Mama's there, underneath the floor Brother Death, please mind the store Old Aunty Death Don't hide your bones Old Uncle Death I hear your groans O Sister Death how sweet your moans O Children Deaths go breathe your breaths Sobbing breasts'll ease your Deaths Pain is gone, tears take the rest Genius Death your art is done Lover Death your body's gone Father Death I'm coming home Guru Death your words are true Teacher Death I do thank you For inspiring me to sing this Blues Buddha Death, I wake with you Dharma Death, your mind is new Sangha Death, we'll work it through Suffering is what was born Ignorance made me forlorn Tearful truths I cannot scorn Father Breath once more farewell Birth you gave was no thing ill My heart is stil...

by Allen Ginsberg Homage Kenneth Koch If I were doing my Laundry I'd wash my dirty Iran I'd throw in my United States, and pour on the Ivory Soap, scrub up Africa, put all the birds and elephants back in the jungle, I'd wash the Amazon river and clean the oily Carib & Gulf of Mexico, Rub that smog off the North Pole, wipe up all the pipelines in Alaska, Rub a dub dub for Rocky Flats and Los Alamos, Flush that sparkly Cesium out of Love Canal Rinse down the Acid Rain over the Parthenon & Sphinx, Drain the Sludge out of the Mediterranean basin & make it azure again, Put some blueing back into the sky over the Rhine, bleach the little Clouds so snow return white as snow, Cleanse the Hudson Thames & Neckar, Drain the Suds out of Lake Erie Then I'd throw big Asia in one giant Load & wash out the blood & Agent Orange, Dump the whole mess of Russia and China in the wringer, squeeze out the tattletail Gray of U.S. Central American poli...

by Allen Ginsberg What thoughts I have of you tonight, Walt Whitman, 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 families 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, pos...

by Allen Ginsberg I speak of love that comes to mind: The moon is faithful, although blind; She moves in thought she cannot speak. Perfect care has made her bleak. I never dreamed the sea so deep, The earth so dark; so long my sleep, I have become another child. I wake to see the world go wild.

by Allen Ginsberg "Soyez muette pour moi, Idole contemplative..." I came home and found a lion in my living room Rushed out on the fire escape screaming Lion! Lion! Two stenographers pulled their brunnette hair and banged the window shut I hurried home to Patterson and stayed two days Called up old Reichian analyst who'd kicked me out of therapy for smoking marijuana 'It's happened' I panted 'There's a Lion in my living room' 'I'm afraid any discussion would have no value' he hung up I went to my old boyfriend we got drunk with his girlfriend I kissed him and announced I had a lion with a mad gleam in my eye We wound up fighting on the floor I bit his eyebrow he kicked me out I ended up masturbating in his jeep parked in the street moaning 'Lion.' Found Joey my novelist friend and roared at him 'Lion!' He looked at me interested and read me his spontaneous ignu high poetries I listened for lions al...

by Yosha Bourgea An overcast San Francisco afternoon. Chinatown. Pulling me by the arm, my mother walks quickly past the sidewalk markets where they sell old soft oranges, cabbages, bad radios, cheap shoes. I have a cold. My head is full of dreams and I cannot keep up. I dream a saucer-eyed dragon grinning with long, lolling tongue, breathing white porcelain clouds across the sky. They drift, aimless boats, sticks flagged with leaves and set upon the river. Old man in a jacket tosses me a good luck orange, but I miss. It bobs along the curb, then goes under. Again I let go of her hand. Like a leaf floating on water I lose myself quickly in the rush of coats. Where am I going? I am the drowning boy. Nothing to look for now, not abandoned mother, not lost luck. The current closes my eyes. -

by Lisel Mueller This is not fantasy, this is our life. We are the characters who have invaded the moon, who cannot stop their computers. We are the gods who can unmake the world in seven days. Both hands are stopped at noon. We are beginning to live forever, in lightweight, aluminum bodies with numbers stamped on our backs. We dial our words like Muzak. We hear each other through water. The genre is dead. Invent something new. Invent a man and a woman naked in a garden, invent a child that will save the world, a man who carries his father out of a burning city. Invent a spool of thread that leads a hero to safety, invent an island on which he abandons the woman who saved his life with no loss of sleep over his betrayal. Invent us as we were before our bodies glittered and we stopped bleeding: invent a shepherd who kills a giant, a girl who grows into a tree, a woman who refuses to turn her back on the past and is changed to salt, a boy who steals his brother’s birthright and becomes ...