Monday, September 25, 2006
The Terms in Which I Think of Reality, by Allen Ginsberg
Reality is a question
of realizing how real
the world is already.
Time is Eternity,
ultimate and immovable;
everyone's an angel.
It's Heaven's mystery
of changing perfection :
absolute Eternity
changes! Cars are always
going down the street,
lamps go off and on.
It's a great flat plain;
we can see everything
on top of a table.
Clams open on the table,
lambs are eaten by worms
on the plain. The motion
of change is beautiful,
as well as form called
in and out of being.
Next : to distinguish process
in its particularity with
an eye to the initiation
of gratifying new changes
desired in the real world.
Here we're overwhelmed
with such unpleasant detail
we dream again of Heaven.
For the world is a mountain
of shit : if it's going to
be moved at all, it's got
to be taken by handfuls.
Man lives like the unhappy
whore on River Street who
in her Eternity gets only
a couple of bucks and a lot
of snide remarks in return
for seeking physical love
the best way she knows how,
never really heard of a glad
job or joyous marriage or
a difference in the heart :
or thinks it isn't for her,
which is her worst misery.
*
Victor Hugo, literary lions, spied on by French police
PARIS - Victor Hugo was a miserly money-grubber, poet Rimbaud “a monstrosity”, and Verlaine “a worthless human being” -- such are the verdicts on 19th-century French literary lions found in long-forgotten police files recently published in Paris.
Even more startling than the unflattering portraits, says Bruno Fuligni, an employee at the National Assembly, or French parliament, who discovered the dust-covered files and compiled them into a book, is the vigor and thoroughness with which the most revered writers of that era were spied upon by snitches and secret police.
“Beyond criminals and political figures, there are files on writers and artists. In some cases, they go quite far in their indiscretions,” he said.
Some of the tidbits in Fuligni’s book, entitled “The Writers’ Police”, were collected from 1879 through 1891 under police chief Louis Andrieux who -- irony of ironies -- was to father one of France’s most famous novelists and poets of the next generation, Louis Aragon.
As Andrieux wrote in his memoirs, “All of Paris, in the end, is on file.”
...
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Good Morning, It was a random poem on www.poemhunter.com.
I assume you meant the poem & not the picture or news item...
Thanks for the comment,
-Alice
I assume you meant the poem & not the picture or news item...
Thanks for the comment,
-Alice
excellent poem, Alice
who knew Ginsberg was so accessible ... a pre-cursor to Bukowski ... in that poem
very interesting stuff about police reports, artists,...and the old daze
i hope you're having a great day :)
good luck with the kitties ...
who knew Ginsberg was so accessible ... a pre-cursor to Bukowski ... in that poem
very interesting stuff about police reports, artists,...and the old daze
i hope you're having a great day :)
good luck with the kitties ...
Hi Sir Real!
Glad you like it.
Here's a site about his poems I just found - http://www.ginzy.com/Poems.html
Patterson, Spring, 1950- That's the only info shown for that poem, under his Early Works. The two links they have don't work. I was trying to find out more about that particular poem...
Love,
-Alice
Post a Comment
Glad you like it.
Here's a site about his poems I just found - http://www.ginzy.com/Poems.html
Patterson, Spring, 1950- That's the only info shown for that poem, under his Early Works. The two links they have don't work. I was trying to find out more about that particular poem...
Love,
-Alice
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