Collected Poems 1947-1997 - Ginsberg Allen - Страница 13

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narrowing down the name

to nothing,

          seven years’:

fears

in a web of ancient measure;

the words dead

flies, a crop

of ghosts,

          seven years’:

the spider is dead.

Paterson, Spring 1950

The Shrouded Stranger

1

The Shroudy Stranger’s reft of realms.

Abhorred he sits upon the city dump.

His broken heart’s a bag of shit.

The vast rainfall, an empty mirror.

2

A Dream

He climbed over the rim

of the huge tower

looking down afraid,

descended the escarpment

over sheaves of rock,

crossed railyard gullies

and vast river-bridges

on the groundward slope

under an iron viaduct,

coming to rivulet

in a still meadow

by a small wood

where he stood trembling

in the naked flowers,

and walked under oak

to the house of folk.

3

I dreamed I was dreaming again

and decided to go down the years

looking for the Shrouded Stranger.

I knew the old bastard

was hanging around somewhere.

I couldn’t find him for a while;

went looking under beds,

pulling mattresses off,

and finally discovered him

hiding under the springs

crouched in the corner:

met him face to face at last.

I didn’t even recognize him.

“I’ll bet you didn’t think

it was me after all,” he said.

4

Fragmenta Monumenti

It was to have a structure, it

was going to tell a story;

it was to be a mass of images

moving on a page, with

a hollow voice at the center;

it was to have told of Time

and Eternity; to have begun

in the rainfall’s hood and moon,

and ended under the street light

of the world’s bare physical

appearance; begun among vultures

in the mountains of Mexico,

traveled through all America

and ended in garbage on River Street;

its first line was to be

“Be with me Shroud, now—”

and the last “—naked

on broken bottles

between the brick walls,”

being THE VISION OF THE SHROUDED STRANGER OF THE NIGHT.

Paterson-New York, 1949-September 1950

An Imaginary Rose in a Book

Oh dry old rose of God,

that with such bleak perfume

changed images to blood

and body to a tomb,

what fragrance you have lost,

and are now withered mere

crimson myth of dust

and recollection sere

of an unfading garden

whereof the myriad life

and all that flock in blossom,

none other met the knife.

Paterson, Early 1950

Crash

There is more to Fury

Than men imagine

Who drive a pallid jury

On a pale engine.

In a spinning plane,

A false machine,

The pilot drops in flame

From the unseen.

Paterson, Early 1950

The Terms in Which I Think of Reality

a.

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:

absolutely 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 the 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.

b.

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

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