Today's Word

OBSTREPEROUS,adj.


Noisy and difficult to control

Words Of Wisdom

Experience is not what happens to you; it's what you do with what happens to you.


~Aldous Huxley, Novelist (1894-1963)

New Year's Day Poetry Marathon

Don't forget the 42nd New Year's Day Poetry Marathon at St. Mark's Church.



St. Mark's Church 
131 East 10th Street     2 PM-2 AM
New York, NY
www.poetryproject.org

Summary Of 2015

There were some new activities I tried this year. I became involved in the theater project at church. I became more involved with writing plays, doing improv, and acted in a play. I also looked over some poetry I've written and did some more editing and revising.

As 2016 is just a few days away i'm formulating my goals for the coming year. I do know it will involve play writing. Have you achieved some of the goals that you set? What do want to accomplish in 2016? It's important to have some goals and work on them. May you have Happy New Year writing, acting, or performing.

Merry Christmas

Words Of Wisdom

Correction does much, but encouragement does more.


~Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Poet (1749-1832) 

Reflections

I have said many times that holiday season is a time of reflection for me. It's also a good to reflect on how my writing is coming along. I'm still learning how to write plays. Improv is a different genre I still have a ways to go. I wrote a commentary the other night. and am currently working on an essay. I try to write every day no matter how much or how little.

When I do take a break, I defuse a little bit because information overload can burn one out. I'm currently reading a book called The Beat Hotel and what I see is writers and artists expanding their range of communication. Poetry, essays, art, the spoken word, and short stories. I was impressed with Brion Gysin and his Cut-Up invention; the Dream Machine. At times I have thought about adding art to my writings.   

Just by pulling away a little bit, I see where I am and where I need to go. It's a ever evolving craft and I'm enjoying the journey.

Acting and Improv

Tonight at theater project we read some plays. I saw the importance of using the right emotions when doing a particular piece. It can be excitement, fear, resignation, anticipation. I see what actors do to prepare for what they do. I would have become a stage actor if I had my druthers.

You have to study line by line. There's lots of practice involved. Acting is a craft not easily mastered. Improv has helped me understand what it is to let myself go; something that is not always easy for me personally. I'm getting better at it though.  

Words Of Wisdom

This world is but a canvas to our imagination.

~Henry David Thoreau

Wrote Two Stories

I have written one story and a horror story in recent days. The former is about a woman who traverses through a neighborhood she once hung out in years earlier now changed by gentrification. It kind of mirrors some of my experiences. 

I see myself as a reflective writer because I can remember many things that happened twenty, thirty and even 40 years so if they happened yesterday. Horror writing puts me in a different frame of mind. I love the psychological horror where people are forced to confront and face their fears. Horror is more challenging but I like challenges.

Poetry Reading Marathon

                               42nd ANNUAL NEW YEAR'S DAY READING                                                     MARATHON

January 1st is just a couple of weeks away. Why not begin the year with some fine poetry. It will be held at historic St Mark's Church in the East Village from 2 PM to 2 AM. There will be refreshments and books for sale.

St. Mark's Church

131 East 10th Street

New York, NY
Tel.: (212) 674-0910

http:/poetryproject.org

Jazz Is My Religion

Words Of Wisdom

Always desire to learn something useful.

~Sophocles, Greek Poet (496BC-406BC)

Meeting Other Writers

The current book I'm reading, The Beat Hotel, has brought me in contact with other writers who were interested in the Beat Movement and the beat writers in particular. Allen Ginsberg, William Burroughs, and Gregory Corso met a wide variety of writers and artists. Andre Breton, David Gascoyne,  Alain Bosquet, Gunter Grass, and Herbert Gold were a few of the writers they met or sought out.

Upon reading this I guess it's in the blood for writers to seek out other writers. There are so many writers that have influenced me. Edgar Allan Poe, Jack Kerouac, Paul Laurence Dunbar, Herman Melville are some that have influenced me. I have been doing some playwriting and so I'm boning up on some playwrights.

I need to become more acquainted with modern writers. I enjoy Mary Oliver's work. I need to find out where they are and get acquainted with them.     

Ancient Greek Writers

As some of you might know, I've always had a strong interest in the ancient Greek writers and poets. Authors such as Sophocles, Homer, Sappho, and Euripides have gripped in their content and their intent to incite a response, especially from their critics.

I have been experimenting on writing a play in the same format. It isn't easy but I'm trying. I also find the Greek plays reflective of the times. I suppose all plays are. I have settled on some periods of time that I need to fashion on.

Words Of Wisdom

Hope is being able to see that there is light despite all the darkness.


~Desmond Tutu

Book Review

Title: Some Assembly Required
Author: Arin Andrews
Publisher: Simon & Schuster, copyright 2012
Rating: 7.5 

Some Assembly Required was an enjoyable book about a female to male trans teen transition and the events that he faced. It was an education for his folks and those around him. When Arin finally discovered who he was it was a huge revelation for him.

Arin was at the point of ending it all until he found that there were others like himself. I was moved by how Arin's changed from unaccepting to fully supportive once she understood what transgender really is. It has reminded me of what we as transgender people face.

Some Assembly Required was and easy read in which young and old could breeze through.  Arin Andrews could be a writer because I believe he did an excellent job with this book. I look forward to what will happen in his future.

Sunday Morning Matinee

Tomorrow, Sunday, November 29th at 11 AM, the Film Forum will screen the classic Sidney Portier movie A Raisin In The Sun. This is one of the best films I have seen in my life time.

Go to www.filmforum.org for information.

Commentary Leading to Play or Film

I'm writing a commentary about a man who is leaving the adult entertainment industry. It's seems to be decent material for either a play or a film.  A short film or a video could be in order.

Janis Joplin Documentary

For all fans of the late rock Janis Joplin, There will be a documentary presented beginning November 27th at the Walter Reade Theater, the Francesca Beale Theater and the Howard Gilman Theater.

For information go to:

www.filmlinc.com

What We Don

What We Don

Words Of Wisdom

Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a path. 

~Ralph Waldo Emerson

Poem

AUTUMN

The days are getting shorter

And the nights are longer.

The beaches are closed

No more sprinklers open on those very hot days

The children are in school now,

And its also football season.

                            

The November winds chill my bones

Slumber comes to the bear and the groundhog

The landscape transforms from lush green

To an orange, red, and orange collage.

Squirrels scurry about gathering acorns

For the long winter ahead.

I look up and see geese flying south to warmer climes

I give thanks for a bountiful harvest

As the quiet settles in, I listen to the leafless trees

Whisper in the wind, “Take your rest!”

Just realized there : I Am An Introvert Story & Experience

Just realized there : I Am An Introvert Story & Experience

Bill Kushner Memorial Reading

Memorial Reading for Bill Kushner

EVENT DETAILS:Monday, November 16, 2015, 8:00 pm

Join us to celebrate the life and work of dear poet Bill Kushner, who passed away in August. With Don Yorty, Lewis Warsh, Anselm Berrigan, Eddie Berrigan, Stacy Szymaszek, Lee Ann Brown, John Godfrey, Maggie Dubris, Patricia Spears Jones, Peter Bushyeager, Phyllis Wat, Dennis Moritz, Lydia Cortes, Cliff Fyman, KB Nemcosky, Barbara Henning, Charlotte Carter, Steve Spicehandler, Elinor Nauen, Tom Savage, Merry Fortune, Noam Scheindlin, and Ken “Angel” Davis.

I listened to Bill read his poetry at the New Years Day Poetry Marathon at St. Mark's Church. He was a fixture there and one person I looked forward to listening to.   

Today's Word

SYMPATICO, 

To share a mental connection or bond with someone; have a lot in common with someone

Words Of Wisdom

One isn't necessarily born with courage, but one is born with potential. Without courage, we cannot practice any other virtue with consistency. We can't be kind, true, merciful, generous, or honest.

~Maya Angelou   

Writing

Tomorrow I will write about my true desire to be a writer. I'm pretty sure what I want to write. There are some deep seated feelings and fears that need to be dealt with. I never pursued a career in writing mainly because I didn't have the confidence that I could do it. Now I need to slay those dragons because more and more this artist desire is getting stronger. I'll fill you in as I go along.

Writing Snippets

I have been writing short snippets of ideas for future stories. I'm somewhat of an outline freak in that I write sections of what I intend to write. The thought of writing about my own experiences came to me again (suggested by a friend). One of the experiences could be a short play so I'm playing with that idea. I'll see how it works out.

Words Of Wisdom

We know what we are, but know what we may be.


~William Shakespeare, Dramatist (1564-1616)

Book Review

Title: Trans-Sister Radio
Author: Chris Bohjalian
Published: 2000
Rating: 7.5

This was a good book. Mr. Bohjalian did a fine job with this novel considering that he is not trans. He seems to have a good grasp of the transition process. What transpired with the town folks when they are confronted that a transsexual is living in their town is nothing new. Dana. the person who transitions from male to female just wants to live his life.  Allison, Will, and Carly respond in their own different ways. Will really went through change from hostility to acceptance to attraction to this beautiful woman.

I remember seeing this book in the bookstore years ago. After joining a book club, Trans-Sister Radio was one book we were to discuss. I'm glad that I read it. 

An Active November

November is typically an active month for me. There will be much happening in the way of arts, This past Saturday I attended a concert featuring classical music. Next week it will be a jazz concert.  I'm envisioning doing some poetry some time also. 

Last night I wrote three outlines for future stories/plays while riding the subway. Using free time to create and formulate. There's many activities going on and I wish that I could go to many of them. Just have to pick and choose which ones are more interesting.

Words Of Wisdom

Fun is good.


~Dr. Seuss, Writer (1904-1991)

Challenge Of Focusing

The greatest challenge for me is harnessing all the ideas in my head. It's easy to jump from one thing to another. I have note books of outlines, ideas, and thought written down. Some of them I had for a decade and more.

Too many ideas can paralyze me from focusing on one story. Put it another way; I wish that everything could have been written yesterday. That doesn't get me anywhere. I have been focusing on one story and it's coming along fine. My mind is like a runaway train and I have to remind myself to slow down.

Words of Wisdom

Lessons are not given, they are taken.


~Cesare Pavese, Italian Poet (1908-1950)

Today's Word

PENULTIMATE, adj.

Last, but one in a series of things, second to the last.

Words Of Wisdom

Good critical writing is measured by the perception and evaluation of the subject; bad critical writing by the necessity of maintaining the professional standing of the critic.


~Raymond Chandler

Documentary

A Ballerina's Tale will be shown at Film Society at Lincoln Center now until October.29th. It is the story of Misty Copeland- the first African-American female principal dancer in the 75 year history of New York's American Ballet Theater.

Go to www.filmlinc.org for further information.

Chapbook In The Works

Right now I'm reviewing some poems for a chapbook I want to publish. The poems have been written for some time. So far I have thirteen or fourteen selected for the book. I have chosen 'Seasonal Journeys' for the title.

Words Of Wisdom

Courage means to keep working a relationship, to continue seeking solutions to difficult problems, and to stay focused during stressful situations.

~Denis Waitley

Words Of Wisdom

A thousand words will not leave so deep an impression as one deed.

~Henrik Ibsen, Poet (1828-1906)

A Second Look

I have a list of my favorite authors which I carry around. A second list I compiled was people who are on my radar. They are authors or people I have a strong interest interest in. I also have a list of people I need to take a second look. It's quite possible that my perception of them may be skewed or right on the mark.

The list:  Ronald Reagan
    
                Daniel Patrick Moynihan

                Booker T. Washington

                Horatio Alger

Book Discussion

This book was discussed in my book club last night. Had a lively conversation also. It's the first time I've joined a book club. We're considering discussing Myra Breckenridge for a future discussion.   

TODAY'S WORD

FUNICULAR, adj.

Having the form of or associated with a cord usually under tension.

Operated or moved by a cable.

Words Of Wisdom

In science one tries to tell people,in such a way as to be understood by everyone, something that no one ever knew before. But in poetry, it's the exact opposite.

~Paul Dirac, Physicist (1902-1984)

Today's Word

APPELLATION, n.

An identifying name or title

Sound The Same; Different Meaning and Spelling

GILT

Having a golden color; thin layer of gold or other material applied


GUILT

Responsibility for a crime or doing something bad or wrong

Bad feeling caused by knowing or thinking you've done something wrong or bad.

The Beat Hotel

This is the book I am currently reading. It is about the years beat writers Allen Ginsberg, William Burroughs and Gregory Corso spent in a flea bag Paris hotel. It's another saga in the lives of beat writers. 

Today's Word

ALCHEMY, n.

A science that was used during the Middle Ages in the goal of ordinary metals into gold.

A power or process that changes or transforms something in a mysterious or impressive way.

Words Of Wisdom

Genius might be the ability to say a profound thing in a simple way.


~Charles Bukowski, Author (1920-1994)

Today's Word

METHODOLOGY, n.

A set of systems or methods, principles, or rules for regulating a given discipline.
ex. arts, medicine 

True Selves-Book Review

I finished reading this book a couple of weeks back. I had it in my home library fora while and decided to read it. It is a good book for professionals, families and friends. There's much good information in True Selves which is very helpful. Being a transgender individual I learned some new things myself. It's a staple in my home library. I researched to see if there is an updated version (book was published in 1996) but didn't find one. 

Title: True Selves: Understanding Transsexualism

Author(s): Mildred L. Brown and Chloe Ann Rounsley

Publisher: Jossey-Bass, San Francisco  1996

Rating: 8  

Time Off

I took some time from posting (busy schedule, life) but will be back at it shortly. Many venues take a hiatus during the summer and now that it's September they will be back hopefully better than ever. 

Words Of Wisdom

The greatest trap in or lives is not success, popularity or power, but self-rejection.

~Henri Nouwen, Clergyman (1932-1996)

Political Writing

Radical and political writing has been around as long as there have been people. I remember during the 1960s and 1970s there was many articles about war, poverty, racism, sexism, and greed. The difference today is that the radical and political element has been pushed aside or made silent by corporate sponsorship and funding. No one is going to bite the hand that feeds them. This is the downside of organizations being funded by corporations.

Nowhere has this had an impact more than in media and the publishing companies. Journalism, once a viable career path, is unappealing.  The mainstream media is controlled by corporations. Even some of the so called 'alternative' media has gone this way. I was an avid read at one time of the Village Voice, an alternative newsweekly here in New York City. Forty and fifty years ago it was almost as thick as the New York Times. It touched on the social issues of the day on a regular basis. Today, the Voice is a shell of what it once was. All it is now is advertisement for sex and massage and dull and boring articles about much of nothing. I refuse to read the Voice anymore.

It's difficult for a fledgling writer to break into the mainstream publishing houses because they only want authors who will make money for them. I'm thankful for chapbooks and the small presses for porviding a vehicle for fledgling authors. I see more political and radical writing here and I would like to see more. This is my observation of the state of the media and publishing these days. I pray that it will change one day.

Today's Word

A- prefix

1. not; without; opposite to: amoral, asexual, atheist, atonal  

2. on; in; towards; afoot, abed, aground

3. in the condition or state of: aground, afloat, alive, asleep.

Editing and Tweaking

Editing and tweaking a piece of work can be time consuming but it's necessary. Wanting to hear your voice in the piece is important to the reader as well as the writer. I can't tell you how many times I written something and when I read the next day saw that it wasn't to my liking.

Even great authors do this time and time again. Editing n could be shortening a particular piece. It can also be lengthening it. It could mean rewriting the piece altogether. Editing teaches one patience because a poorly crafted story is worse than a bad one. A couple of words can be the difference between a good story and masterpiece. That's something to think about. 

Today's Word

CADAVER, n.

A dead body, especially one intended for dissection.

X-ray Eyes

I watched this film back when it was out in the theaters back in 1963. It will be shown at the Anthology Film Archives tonight and on Sunday, August 30th. Ray Milland did a fine job of acting in this cult film.

Anthology Film Archives
32 Second Avenue @ Second Street 
New York, NY 10003
(212) 505-5181

http://www.anthologyfilmarchives.org

Today's Word

LYCANTHROPE, n.

A werewolf or alien spirit in the physical form of a bloodthirsty wolf.

Words Of Wisdom

The only person who is educated is the one who has learned how to learn and change.

~Carl Rogers, Psychologist (1902-1987)

Poem

Which s worth more, a crowd of thousands,
or your own genuine solitude?
Freedom, or power over an entire nation?

A little while alone in your room
will prove more valuable than any thing else
that could ever be given you.


~Rumi

Today's Word

OENOPHILE, n.

A connoisseur of fine wines.

Today's Word

PASTILLE, n.

A medicated lozenge used to soothe the throat.

Today's Word

COROLLARY, n.

An immediate consequence or easily drawn conclusion.

Words Of Wisdom

Our workforce and our entire economy are strongest when we embrace diversity to its fullest, and that means opening doors of opportunity to everyone and recognizing that the American Dream excludes no one.

~Thomas Perez

Today's Word

ERUDITE, adj.

Characterized by great knowledge; learned or scholarly

Quiet But The Ideas Are Still Flowing

It's been quiet on the writing front but the ideas haven't taken a vacation. I've been writing down ideas, notes, jottings, tidbits, and doodles of ideas that I hope will turn into plays, poems, or short stories.

I'm mulling over the idea of publishing some poems for a chapbook. Plays are in the offing but I have a long way to go. I've only written about a half dozen thus far. Still writing down how I want to write a novella. Thought I had one written but upon further review, I needed to develop the character more. I also needed to do more research on the adult film industry. I'm not involved in it in any way. As a young person I frequented adult bookstores more out of curiosity. Now I desire to write about a character who is involved within the industry. 

Perhaps I'm stretching my boundaries and, if that's the case, then so be it. I believe that in writing one shouldn't limit themselves. It's important to be open to every idea and experience that may happen.  

Posters-Part 3

How many of you out there remember Murray The K?

Today's Word

CHIMERA, n.

A vain or idle fancy; a horrible or unreal creature of the imagination.

More Posters

 Some of the greats of all time on these posters. Notice the ticket prices.

Today's Word

Amphetamine, n.

A central nervous system stimulant that increases energy and decreases appetite.

Concert Posters

Remember these posters? I am a child of the 1950s and 1960s. When Rock and roll became part of our culture so did the folks who made it famous. The color posters could be seen on posts and billboards all over town. When I was in college in late 60s, rock concerts were really a event to be anticipated. 

These posters weren't limited to rock. There was plenty of blues and jazz and rhythm and blue concerts also.

Today's Word

VENDEE, n.

One to whom something is sold; a buyer.

Words Of Wisdom

Writing requires perseverance.

Today's Word

PHILOLOGIST, n.

The study of literary texts and of written records, the establishment of their authenticity.

Morning Notes

During my involvement with a theater project, my spouse and I did an exercise called morning pages. What it is is that you write whatever comes to mind. That was easy for me. My spouse had some difficulty in the beginning but now she does it. 

Since doing the morning notes I have come up with so many ideas for stories, plays, and poems that it's  hard to keep up or worse yet where to start. It's a nice problem to have though. 

Festival

This interesting festival will begin next week.

Today's Word

BEZANT, n.

A gold coin of the Byzantine Empire; widely circulated in Europe in the Middle Ages.

The Arts

In my community of Washington Heights, the arts are a thread weaving through the fabric of the neighborhood. There are several programs where young people can hone their skills in writing, acting, directing, rapping, and producing their work.

The arts are part of what a liberal arts education is. When budget cuts come, the arts one of the first things to go. Activities such as band, drama club, and dance do just as much to educate as math, history, and biology.  With schools cutting arts and sports programs, the private sector will need to pick up the slack.  

Still Closed For Renovations

I reported a couple of months back that the Quad Cinema was closed for renovations. It is still closed for renovations. I don't know when it will reopen but I'll keep you posted on the progress.

Words Of Wisdom

Carve your name on your heart and not on marble.

~Proverb

Today's Words

MALL, n.

A large retail complex containing a variety of stores, restaurants, and other businesses in a series of connected buildings or in a single large building.


MAUL, n.

1. A heavy hammer, as for driving stakes or wedges. 

2. To handle or use roughly.

3. To injure by a rough beating, shoving, etc.; bruise.

Today's Word

HARMONIUM, n.

An organ-like keyboard instrument that produces tones with free metal reeds actuate by air forced from a bellows.

Stories To Share.

I keep getting so many ideas for stories and plays. I write the ideas down in a note book. I can't get to them all because there's so many other plays and stories. A friend of mine will be getting her book published some time this year. I can't wait to read it. She's had an interesting life thus far. We all have our own stories to share. 

Today's Word

NASCENT, adj.

Coming into existence; emerging.

Being born; developing.

Book

This book is my current read.

Words Of Wisdom

The free soul is rare, but you know it when you see it-basically because you feel good, very good, when you are near or with them.

~Charles Bukowski, Author (1920-1994)

Poem

Howl

BY ALLEN GINSBERG

For Carl Solomon

I

I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked,

dragging themselves through the negro streets at dawn looking for an angry fix,

angelheaded hipsters burning for the ancient heavenly connection to the starry dynamo in the machinery of night,

who poverty and tatters and hollow-eyed and high sat up smoking in the supernatural darkness of cold-water flats floating across the tops of cities contemplating jazz,

who bared their brains to Heaven under the El and saw Mohammedan angels staggering on tenement roofs illuminated,

who passed through universities with radiant cool eyes hallucinating Arkansas and Blake-light tragedy among the scholars of war,

who were expelled from the academies for crazy & publishing obscene odes on the windows of the skull,

who cowered in unshaven rooms in underwear, burning their money in wastebaskets and listening to the Terror through the wall,

who got busted in their pubic beards returning through Laredo with a belt of marijuana for New York,

who ate fire in paint hotels or drank turpentine in Paradise Alley, death, or purgatoried their torsos night after night

with dreams, with drugs, with waking nightmares, alcohol and cock and endless balls,

incomparable blind streets of shuddering cloud and lightning in the mind leaping toward poles of Canada & Paterson, illuminating all the motionless world of Time between,

Peyote solidities of halls, backyard green tree cemetery dawns, wine drunkenness over the rooftops, storefront boroughs of teahead joyride neon blinking traffic light, sun and moon and tree vibrations in the roaring winter dusks of Brooklyn, ashcan rantings and kind king light of mind,

who chained themselves to subways for the endless ride from Battery to holy Bronx on benzedrine until the noise of wheels and children brought them down shuddering mouth-wracked and battered bleak of brain all drained of brilliance in the drear light of Zoo,

who sank all night in submarine light of Bickford’s floated out and sat through the stale beer afternoon in desolate Fugazzi’s, listening to the crack of doom on the hydrogen jukebox,

who talked continuously seventy hours from park to pad to bar to Bellevue to museum to the Brooklyn Bridge,

a lost battalion of platonic conversationalists jumping down the stoops off fire escapes off windowsills off Empire State out of the moon,

yacketayakking screaming vomiting whispering facts and memories and anecdotes and eyeball kicks and shocks of hospitals and jails and wars,

whole intellects disgorged in total recall for seven days and nights with brilliant eyes, meat for the Synagogue cast on the pavement,

who vanished into nowhere Zen New Jersey leaving a trail of ambiguous picture postcards of Atlantic City Hall,

suffering Eastern sweats and Tangerian bone-grindings and migraines of China under junk-withdrawal in Newark’s bleak furnished room,   

who wandered around and around at midnight in the railroad yard wondering where to go, and went, leaving no broken hearts,

who lit cigarettes in boxcars boxcars boxcars racketing through snow toward lonesome farms in grandfather night,

who studied Plotinus Poe St. John of the Cross telepathy and bop kabbalah because the cosmos instinctively vibrated at their feet in Kansas,   

who loned it through the streets of Idaho seeking visionary indian angels who were visionary indian angels,

who thought they were only mad when Baltimore gleamed in supernatural ecstasy,

who jumped in limousines with the Chinaman of Oklahoma on the impulse of winter midnight streetlight smalltown rain,

who lounged hungry and lonesome through Houston seeking jazz or sex or soup, and followed the brilliant Spaniard to converse about America and Eternity, a hopeless task, and so took ship to Africa,

who disappeared into the volcanoes of Mexico leaving behind nothing but the shadow of dungarees and the lava and ash of poetry scattered in fireplace Chicago,

who reappeared on the West Coast investigating the FBI in beards and shorts with big pacifist eyes sexy in their dark skin passing out incomprehensible leaflets,

who burned cigarette holes in their arms protesting the narcotic tobacco haze of Capitalism,

who distributed Supercommunist pamphlets in Union Square weeping and undressing while the sirens of Los Alamos wailed them down, and wailed down Wall, and the Staten Island ferry also wailed,

who broke down crying in white gymnasiums naked and trembling before the machinery of other skeletons,

who bit detectives in the neck and shrieked with delight in policecars for committing no crime but their own wild cooking pederasty and intoxication,

who howled on their knees in the subway and were dragged off the roof waving genitals and manuscripts,

who let themselves be fucked in the ass by saintly motorcyclists, and screamed with joy,

who blew and were blown by those human seraphim, the sailors, caresses of Atlantic and Caribbean love,

who balled in the morning in the evenings in rosegardens and the grass of public parks and cemeteries scattering their semen freely to whomever come who may,

who hiccuped endlessly trying to giggle but wound up with a sob behind a partition in a Turkish Bath when the blond & naked angel came to pierce them with a sword,

who lost their loveboys to the three old shrews of fate the one eyed shrew of the heterosexual dollar the one eyed shrew that winks out of the womb and the one eyed shrew that does nothing but sit on her ass and snip the intellectual golden threads of the craftsman’s loom,

who copulated ecstatic and insatiate with a bottle of beer a sweetheart a package of cigarettes a candle and fell off the bed, and continued along the floor and down the hall and ended fainting on the wall with a vision of ultimate cunt and come eluding the last gyzym of consciousness,

who sweetened the snatches of a million girls trembling in the sunset, and were red eyed in the morning but prepared to sweeten the snatch of the sunrise, flashing buttocks under barns and naked in the lake,

who went out whoring through Colorado in myriad stolen night-cars, N.C., secret hero of these poems, cocksman and Adonis of Denver—joy to the memory of his innumerable lays of girls in empty lots & diner backyards, moviehouses’ rickety rows, on mountaintops in caves or with gaunt waitresses in familiar roadside lonely petticoat upliftings & especially secret gas-station solipsisms of johns, & hometown alleys too,

who faded out in vast sordid movies, were shifted in dreams, woke on a sudden Manhattan, and picked themselves up out of basements hung-over with heartless Tokay and horrors of Third Avenue iron dreams & stumbled to unemployment offices,

who walked all night with their shoes full of blood on the snowbank docks waiting for a door in the East River to open to a room full of steam-heat and opium,

who created great suicidal dramas on the apartment cliff-banks of the Hudson under the wartime blur floodlight of the moon & their heads shall be crowned with laurel in oblivion,

who ate the lamb stew of the imagination or digested the crab at the muddy bottom of the rivers of Bowery,

who wept at the romance of the streets with their pushcarts full of onions and bad music,

who sat in boxes breathing in the darkness under the bridge, and rose up to build harpsichords in their lofts,

who coughed on the sixth floor of Harlem crowned with flame under the tubercular sky surrounded by orange crates of theology,

who scribbled all night rocking and rolling over lofty incantations which in the yellow morning were stanzas of gibberish,

who cooked rotten animals lung heart feet tail borsht & tortillas dreaming of the pure vegetable kingdom,

who plunged themselves under meat trucks looking for an egg,

who threw their watches off the roof to cast their ballot for Eternity outside of Time, & alarm clocks fell on their heads every day for the next decade,

who cut their wrists three times successively unsuccessfully, gave up and were forced to open antique stores where they thought they were growing old and cried,

who were burned alive in their innocent flannel suits on Madison Avenue amid blasts of leaden verse & the tanked-up clatter of the iron regiments of fashion & the nitroglycerine shrieks of the fairies of advertising & the mustard gas of sinister intelligent editors, or were run down by the drunken taxicabs of Absolute Reality,

who jumped off the Brooklyn Bridge this actually happened and walked away unknown and forgotten into the ghostly daze of Chinatown soup alleyways & firetrucks, not even one free beer,

who sang out of their windows in despair, fell out of the subway window, jumped in the filthy Passaic, leaped on negroes, cried all over the street, danced on broken wineglasses barefoot smashed phonograph records of nostalgic European 1930s German jazz finished the whiskey and threw up groaning into the bloody toilet, moans in their ears and the blast of colossal steamwhistles,

who barreled down the highways of the past journeying to each other’s hotrod-Golgotha jail-solitude watch or Birmingham jazz incarnation,

who drove crosscountry seventytwo hours to find out if I had a vision or you had a vision or he had a vision to find out Eternity,

who journeyed to Denver, who died in Denver, who came back to Denver & waited in vain, who watched over Denver & brooded & loned in Denver and finally went away to find out the Time, & now Denver is lonesome for her heroes,

who fell on their knees in hopeless cathedrals praying for each other’s salvation and light and breasts, until the soul illuminated its hair for a second,

who crashed through their minds in jail waiting for impossible criminals with golden heads and the charm of reality in their hearts who sang sweet blues to Alcatraz,

who retired to Mexico to cultivate a habit, or Rocky Mount to tender Buddha or Tangiers to boys or Southern Pacific to the black locomotive or Harvard to Narcissus to Woodlawn to the daisychain or grave,

who demanded sanity trials accusing the radio of hypnotism & were left with their insanity & their hands & a hung jury,

who threw potato salad at CCNY lecturers on Dadaism and subsequently presented themselves on the granite steps of the madhouse with shaven heads and harlequin speech of suicide, demanding instantaneous lobotomy,

and who were given instead the concrete void of insulin Metrazol electricity hydrotherapy psychotherapy occupational therapy pingpong & amnesia,

who in humorless protest overturned only one symbolic pingpong table, resting briefly in catatonia,

returning years later truly bald except for a wig of blood, and tears and fingers, to the visible madman doom of the wards of the madtowns of the East,

Pilgrim State’s Rockland’s and Greystone’s foetid halls, bickering with the echoes of the soul, rocking and rolling in the midnight solitude-bench dolmen-realms of love, dream of life a nightmare, bodies turned to stone as heavy as the moon,

with mother finally ******, and the last fantastic book flung out of the tenement window, and the last door closed at 4 A.M. and the last telephone slammed at the wall in reply and the last furnished room emptied down to the last piece of mental furniture, a yellow paper rose twisted on a wire hanger in the closet, and even that imaginary, nothing but a hopeful little bit of hallucination—

ah, Carl, while you are not safe I am not safe, and now you’re really in the total animal soup of time—

and who therefore ran through the icy streets obsessed with a sudden flash of the alchemy of the use of the ellipsis catalogue a variable measure and the vibrating plane,

who dreamt and made incarnate gaps in Time & Space through images juxtaposed, and trapped the archangel of the soul between 2 visual images and joined the elemental verbs and set the noun and dash of consciousness together jumping with sensation of Pater Omnipotens Aeterna Deus

to recreate the syntax and measure of poor human prose and stand before you speechless and intelligent and shaking with shame, rejected yet confessing out the soul to conform to the rhythm of thought in his naked and endless head,

the madman bum and angel beat in Time, unknown, yet putting down here what might be left to say in time come after death,

and rose reincarnate in the ghostly clothes of jazz in the goldhorn shadow of the band and blew the suffering of America’s naked mind for love into an eli eli lamma lamma sabacthani saxophone cry that shivered the cities down to the last radio

with the absolute heart of the poem of life butchered out of their own bodies good to eat a thousand years.

II

What sphinx of cement and aluminum bashed open their skulls and ate up their brains and imagination?

Moloch! Solitude! Filth! Ugliness! Ashcans and unobtainable dollars! Children screaming under the stairways! Boys sobbing in armies! Old men weeping in the parks!

Moloch! Moloch! Nightmare of Moloch! Moloch the loveless! Mental Moloch! Moloch the heavy judger of men!

Moloch the incomprehensible prison! Moloch the crossbone soulless jailhouse and Congress of sorrows! Moloch whose buildings are judgment! Moloch the vast stone of war! Moloch the stunned governments!

Moloch whose mind is pure machinery! Moloch whose blood is running money! Moloch whose fingers are ten armies! Moloch whose breast is a cannibal dynamo! Moloch whose ear is a smoking tomb!

Moloch whose eyes are a thousand blind windows! Moloch whose skyscrapers stand in the long streets like endless Jehovahs! Moloch whose factories dream and croak in the fog! Moloch whose smoke-stacks and antennae crown the cities!

Moloch whose love is endless oil and stone! Moloch whose soul is electricity and banks! Moloch whose poverty is the specter of genius! Moloch whose fate is a cloud of sexless hydrogen! Moloch whose name is the Mind!

Moloch in whom I sit lonely! Moloch in whom I dream Angels! Crazy in Moloch! Cocksucker in Moloch! Lacklove and manless in Moloch!

Moloch who entered my soul early! Moloch in whom I am a consciousness without a body! Moloch who frightened me out of my natural ecstasy! Moloch whom I abandon! Wake up in Moloch! Light streaming out of the sky!

Moloch! Moloch! Robot apartments! invisible suburbs! skeleton treasuries! blind capitals! demonic industries! spectral nations! invincible madhouses! granite cocks! monstrous bombs!

They broke their backs lifting Moloch to Heaven! Pavements, trees, radios, tons! lifting the city to Heaven which exists and is everywhere about us!

Visions! omens! hallucinations! miracles! ecstasies! gone down the American river!

Dreams! adorations! illuminations! religions! the whole boatload of sensitive bullshit!

Breakthroughs! over the river! flips and crucifixions! gone down the flood! Highs! Epiphanies! Despairs! Ten years’ animal screams and suicides! Minds! New loves! Mad generation! down on the rocks of Time!

Real holy laughter in the river! They saw it all! the wild eyes! the holy yells! They bade farewell! They jumped off the roof! to solitude! waving! carrying flowers! Down to the river! into the street!

III

Carl Solomon! I’m with you in Rockland

   where you’re madder than I am

I’m with you in Rockland

   where you must feel very strange

I’m with you in Rockland

   where you imitate the shade of my mother

I’m with you in Rockland

   where you’ve murdered your twelve secretaries

I’m with you in Rockland

   where you laugh at this invisible humor

I’m with you in Rockland

   where we are great writers on the same dreadful typewriter

I’m with you in Rockland

   where your condition has become serious and is reported on the radio

I’m with you in Rockland

   where the faculties of the skull no longer admit the worms of the senses

I'm with you in Rockland

   where you drink the tea of the breasts of the spinsters of Utica

I’m with you in Rockland

   where you pun on the bodies of your nurses the harpies of the Bronx

I’m with you in Rockland

   where you scream in a straightjacket that you’re losing the game of the actual pingpong of the abyss

I’m with you in Rockland

   where you bang on the catatonic piano the soul is innocent and immortal it should never die ungodly in an armed madhouse

I’m with you in Rockland

   where fifty more shocks will never return your soul to its body again from its pilgrimage to a cross in the void

I’m with you in Rockland

   where you accuse your doctors of insanity and plot the Hebrew socialist revolution against the fascist national Golgotha

I’m with you in Rockland

   where you will split the heavens of Long Island and resurrect your living human Jesus from the superhuman tomb

I’m with you in Rockland

   where there are twentyfive thousand mad comrades all together singing the final stanzas of the Internationale

I’m with you in Rockland

   where we hug and kiss the United States under our bedsheets the United States that coughs all night and won’t let us sleep

I’m with you in Rockland

   where we wake up electrified out of the coma by our own souls’ airplanes roaring over the roof they’ve come to drop angelic bombs the hospital illuminates itself    imaginary walls collapse    O skinny legions run outside    O starry-spangled shock of mercy the eternal war is here    O victory forget your underwear we’re free

I’m with you in Rockland

   in my dreams you walk dripping from a sea-journey on the highway across America in tears to the door of my cottage in the Western night

San Francisco, 1955—1956

I remember when I first read this poem I said 'What? I thought Ginsberg was nuts. When I read it a few times it speaks about many things that are happening now.