Collected Poems 1947-1997 - Ginsberg Allen (книги серии онлайн .TXT) 📗
as he left his groundfloor flat, refusing to speak to the inhabitant of Apt. 24
who’d put his boyfriend in Bellevue, calling police, while the artistic Buddhist composer
on sixth floor lay spaced out feet swollen with water, dying slowly of AIDS over a year—
The Chinese teacher cleaned & cooked in Apt. 23 for the homosexual poet who pined for his gymnast
thighs & buttocks— Downstairs th’ old hippie flower girl fell drunk over the banister, smashed her jaw—
her son despite moderate fame cheated of rocknroll money, twenty thousand people in stadiums
cheering his tattooed skinhead murderous Hare Krishna vegetarian drum lyrics—
Mary born in the building rested on her cane, heavy-legged with heart failure on the second landing, no more able
to vacation in Caracas & Dublin— The Russian landlady’s husband from concentration camp disappeared again—nobody mentioned he’d died—
tenants took over her building for hot water, she couldn’t add rent & pay taxes, wore a long coat hot days
alone & thin on the street carrying groceries to her crooked apartment silent—
One poet highschool teacher fell dead mysterious heart dysrhythmia, konked over
in his mother’s Brooklyn apartment, his first baby girl a year old, wife stoical a few days—
their growling noisy little dog had to go, the baby cried—
Meanwhile the upstairs apartment meth head shot cocaine & yowled up and down
East 12th Street, kicked out of Christine’s Eatery till police cornered him, ’top a hot iron steamhole
near Stuyvesant Town Avenue A telephone booth calling his deaf mother—sirens speed the way to Bellevue—
past whispering grass crack salesman jittering in circles on East 10th Street’s
southwest corner where art yuppies come out of the overpriced Japanese Sushi Bar—& they poured salt into potato soup heart failure vats at KK’s Polish restaurant
—Garbage piled up, nonbiodegradable plastic bags emptied by diabetic sidewalk homeless
looking for returnable bottles recycled dolls radios half-eaten hamburgers—thrown-away Danish—
On 13th Street the notary public sat in his dingy storefront, driver’s lessons & tax returns prepared on old metal desks—
Sunnysides crisped in butter, fries & sugary donuts passed over the luncheonette counter next door—
The Hispanic lady yelled at the rude African-American behind the Post Office window
“I waited all week my welfare check you sent me notice I was here yesterday
I want to see the supervisor bitch dont insult me refusing to look in—”
Closed eyes of Puerto Rican wino lips cracked skin red stretched out
on the pavement, naphtha backdoor open for the Korean family dry cleaners at the 14th Street corner—
Con Ed workmen drilled all year to bust electric pipes 6 feet deep in brown dirt
so cars bottlenecked wait minutes to pass the M14 bus stopped mid-road, heavy dressed senior citizens step down in red rubble
with Reduced Fare Program cards got from grey city Aging Department offices downtown up the second flight by elevators don’t work—
News comes on the radio, they bomb Baghdad and the Garden of Eden again?
A million starve in Sudan, mountains of eats stacked on docks, local gangs & U.N.’s trembling bureaucrat officers sweat near the equator arguing over
wheat piles shoved by bulldozers—Swedish doctors ran out of medicine— The Pakistan taxi driver
says Salman Rushdie must die, insulting the Prophet in fictions—
“No that wasn’t my opinion, just a character talking like in a poem no judgment”—
“Not till the sun rejects you do I,” so give you a quarter by the Catholic church 14th St. you stand half drunk
waving a plastic glass, flush-faced, live with your mother a wounded look on your lips, eyes squinting,
receding lower jaw sometimes you dry out in Bellevue, most days cadging dollars for sweet wine
by the corner where Plump Blindman shifts from foot to foot showing his white cane, rattling coins in a white paper cup some weeks
where girding the subway entrance construction sawhorses painted orange
guard steps underground— And across the street the NYCE bank machine cubicle door sign reads
Not in Operation as taxis bump on potholes asphalt mounded at the crossroad when red lights change green
& I’m on my way uptown to get a CAT scan liver biopsy, visit the cardiologist,
account for high blood pressure, kidneystones, diabetes, misty eyes & dysesthesia—
feeling lack in feet soles, inside ankles, small of back, phallus head, anus—
Old age sickness death again come round in the wink of an eye—
High school youth the inside skin of my thighs was silken smooth tho
nobody touched me there back then—
Across town the velvet poet takes Darvon N, Valium nightly, sleeps all
day kicking methadone
between brick walls sixth floor in a room cluttered with collages & gold
dot paper scraps covered
with words: “The whole point seems to be the idea of giving away the
giver.”
August 19, 1992
Everyday
The Lama sat
in bed
with bamboo
backscratcher
his false teeth
in a big
glass of water
on the sunny
windowsill.
August 1992
Fun House Antique Store
I’d been motoring through States &
stopped at a country antique store, an
old-fashioned house, in excellent condition—
Flower’d wallpaper, polished banisters
lampshades dusted, candelabra burnished
flaming quiet by the cloak closet
under the stairs, pitcher of water & white
washbowls beside the french doors
embroidered doilies & artificial flowers
ivory & light brown on mahogany
side tables, a brass bowl for cards,
kitchen with polished stove cold ready
at Summer’s end to light up with split
wood & kindling in buckets beside
the empty fireplace, tongs & screen
in neat order. The second floor as
perfectly appointed as the foyer
(set with hat & cane rack & mirror)
stairway rugs & oaken doors, down beds
a glass-front bookcase, brown shiny bureaus,
drawers crammed with old ties & bloomers,
celluloid collars, some long-sleeved underwear, silk
& paisley shirts & shawls—and the stairs
to the third-floor attic rose five steep steps
into a blank wall nicely wallpapered with roses.
What a delicate touch, trompe l’oeil
artistry, what charming care & magical consciousness
