Author
|
Topic: America
|
goatgirl Knowflake Posts: 726 From: Anywhere Registered: Jul 2002
|
posted September 17, 2007 03:16 PM
by Allen GinsbergAmerica I've given you all and now I'm nothing. America two dollars and twenty-seven cents January 17, 1956. I can't stand my own mind. America when will we end the human war? Go f^@k yourself with your atom bomb I don't feel good don't bother me. I won't write my poem till I'm in my right mind. America when will you be angelic? When will you take off your clothes? When will you look at yourself through the grave? When will you be worthy of your million Trotskyites? America why are your libraries full of tears? America when will you send your eggs to India? I'm sick of your insane demands. When can I go into the supermarket and buy what I need with my good looks? America after all it is you and I who are perfect not the next world. Your machinery is too much for me. You made me want to be a saint. There must be some other way to settle this argument. Burroughs is in Tangiers I don't think he'll come back it's sinister. Are you being sinister or is this some form of practical joke? I'm trying to come to the point. I refuse to give up my obsession. America stop pushing I know what I'm doing. America the plum blossoms are falling. I haven't read the newspapers for months, everyday somebody goes on trial for murder. America I feel sentimental about the Wobblies. America I used to be a communist when I was a kid and I'm not sorry. I smoke marijuana every chance I get. I sit in my house for days on end and stare at the roses in the closet. When I go to Chinatown I get drunk and never get laid. My mind is made up there's going to be trouble. You should have seen me reading Marx. My psychoanalyst thinks I'm perfectly right. I won't say the Lord's Prayer. I have mystical visions and cosmic vibrations. America I still haven't told you what you did to Uncle Max after he came over from Russia. I'm addressing you. Are you going to let our emotional life be run by Time Magazine? I'm obsessed by Time Magazine. I read it every week. Its cover stares at me every time I slink past the corner candystore. I read it in the basement of the Berkeley Public Library. It's always telling me about responsibility. Businessmen are serious. Movie producers are serious. Everybody's serious but me. It occurs to me that I am America. I am talking to myself again. Asia is rising against me. I haven't got a chinaman's chance. I'd better consider my national resources. My national resources consist of two joints of marijuana millions of genitals an unpublishable private literature that goes 1400 miles and hour and twentyfivethousand mental institutions. I say nothing about my prisons nor the millions of underpriviliged who live in my flowerpots under the light of five hundred suns. I have abolished the whorehouses of France, Tangiers is the next to go. My ambition is to be President despite the fact that I'm a Catholic. America how can I write a holy litany in your silly mood? I will continue like Henry Ford my strophes are as individual as his automobiles more so they're all different sexes America I will sell you strophes $2500 apiece $500 down on your old strophe America free Tom Mooney America save the Spanish Loyalists America Sacco Vanzetti must not die America I am the Scottsboro boys. America when I was seven momma took me to Communist Cell meetings they sold us garbanzos a handful per ticket a ticket costs a nickel and the speeches were free everybody was angelic and sentimental about the workers it was all so sincere you have no idea what a good thing the party was in 1935 Scott Nearing was a grand old man a real mensch Mother Bloor made me cry I once saw Israel Amter plain. Everybody must have been a spy. America you don're really want to go to war. America it's them bad Russians. Them Russians them Russians and them Chinamen. And them Russians. The Russia wants to eat us alive. The Russia's power mad. She wants to take our cars from out our garages. Her wants to grab Chicago. Her needs a Red Reader's Digest. her wants our auto plants in Siberia. Him big bureaucracy running our fillingstations. That no good. Ugh. Him makes Indians learn read. Him need big black niggers. Hah. Her make us all work sixteen hours a day. Help. America this is quite serious. America this is the impression I get from looking in the television set. America is this correct? I'd better get right down to the job. It's true I don't want to join the Army or turn lathes in precision parts factories, I'm nearsighted and psychopathic anyway. America I'm putting my queer shoulder to the wheel. ------------------ The good life, as I conceive it, is a happy life. I do not mean that if you are good you will be happy - I mean that if you are happy you will be good. ~ Bertrand Russell IP: Logged |
naiad Knowflake Posts: 1512 From: Registered: Sep 2006
|
posted September 19, 2007 05:03 AM
Allen, baby, why so jaded......? (what a tear stained shock of the world) IP: Logged |
goatgirl Knowflake Posts: 726 From: Anywhere Registered: Jul 2002
|
posted September 19, 2007 10:47 AM
I have this audio recording of him reading this piece, and his amusement is apparent. ------------------ The good life, as I conceive it, is a happy life. I do not mean that if you are good you will be happy - I mean that if you are happy you will be good. ~ Bertrand Russell IP: Logged |
naiad Knowflake Posts: 1512 From: Registered: Sep 2006
|
posted September 19, 2007 11:16 AM
allen ginsberg is great. he's the reason i love spoken word artists like Saul Williams. i'd love hearing him recite his work.for some reason reading this last night borught the 10,000 maniacs lyrics to mind. IP: Logged |
Heart--Shaped Cross Knowflake Posts: 5008 From: 11/6/78 11:38am Boston, MA Registered: Aug 2004
|
posted September 19, 2007 02:59 PM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CGBNgVbGfUU http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oWqHlcAmBeA IP: Logged |
naiad Knowflake Posts: 1512 From: Registered: Sep 2006
|
posted September 20, 2007 02:16 AM
very very nice, hsc. IP: Logged |
goatgirl Knowflake Posts: 726 From: Anywhere Registered: Jul 2002
|
posted September 21, 2007 06:50 PM
http://youtube.com/watch?v=LZf2ynX17SI Thanks for the vids HSC. ------------------ The good life, as I conceive it, is a happy life. I do not mean that if you are good you will be happy - I mean that if you are happy you will be good. ~ Bertrand Russell IP: Logged |
goatgirl Knowflake Posts: 726 From: Anywhere Registered: Jul 2002
|
posted September 21, 2007 06:57 PM
and this one too.End of Vietnam War by Allen Ginsberg Come along, come along the end of Vietnam war dirty smart bombs and napalm and US army ****** come along, come along hey baby don't be late come along, come along let's celebrate Watergate Come along, come along, Poor Nixon's in his home, Come along, come along Sitting under Teapot Dome come along come along forget their heroin smoke some grass and relax and forget your bloody wine come along, all-americans and let's be number two number one was a pissy-assed act that we all went through come along, save the whales and save the humans, too and the ladies and the fairies and the communists true blue come along out of the cold war the planet is still here we got to save our mama nothing more we have to fear come along and let the people and the other species rare breathe again vast space the cleaned out US air come along without your fission and if you fusion choose first make sure you don't burn up the very ground you use come along, without you pistol without your policeman's badge secret *** injul traders shooting up themselves in colored rage come along without your police state come along without your power come along just as you are really naked for an hour you have all your life to wear your clothes ninety years to milk your cow come along and breathe together and conspire to be here now come along, come along the hour is at hand when all this mighty nation that smokes across the land can wake up again and shake off our Indochina scream and hear eight hundred thousand orphaned babies they all dream come along, oh modern nation and get down on your knees and ask the gods and buddas up there??? to forgive us if they please we have killed two million people we have wounded millions more and fifteen million refugees are waiting at our door so come along humble an act ??? to please mankind cut down on our electrical delight has made us blind to the stars and all the birdies and the coyotes and the babes??? we have seen without the seeing buried under brimstone waves come along, come along the war is over now indochina is independent and we are friends with Mao the war is over yea, the war is over here and now begins the battle to make our souls more dear come along, come along and empty out your mind of all the american garbage we cast out into wine all the law and order chatter that the gansters sold us fools all the military clatter and their costly useless tools we need more arms and farmers we need to work the land we need to get down on our knees and seed with our own hands the earth we stand on top of the earth we have bombed out come along, come along **** holy shout, yea come along in tallahasse come along in idaho kick the military cops out let all secret agents go to the unemployment office down here we've lost it all ------------------ The good life, as I conceive it, is a happy life. I do not mean that if you are good you will be happy - I mean that if you are happy you will be good. ~ Bertrand Russell IP: Logged |