by Allen Ginsberg
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 ˆ as I walked toward the Lower
East Side ˆ where you walked 50 years ago, little girl ˆ from
Russia, eating the first poisonous tomatoes of America ˆ frightened
on the dock ˆ
then struggling in the crowds of Orchard Street toward what? ˆ toward
Newark
toward candy store, first home-made sodas of the century, hand-churned
ice cream in backroom on musty brownfloor boards ˆ
Toward education marriage nervous breakdown, operation, teaching
school, and learning to be mad, in a dream ˆ what is this life?...
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 ˆ Done with yourself at last--
Pure ˆ Black 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.
Photo Credit: Kaddish