Sunflower Sutra -- Ginsberg
I walked on the banks of the tincan banana dock andsat down under the huge shade of a SouthernPacific locomotive to look at the sunset over thebox house hills and cry.Jack Kerouac sat beside me on a busted rusty ironpole, companion, we thought the same thoughtsof the soul, bleak and blue and sad-eyed,surrounded by the gnarled steel roots of trees ofmachinery.The oily water on the river mirrored the red sky, sunsank on top of final Frisco peaks, no fish in thatstream, no hermit in those mounts, just ourselvesrheumy-eyed and hungover like old bumson the riverbank, tired and wily.Look at the Sunflower, he said, there was a dead grayshadow against the sky, big as a man, sittingdry on top of a pile of ancient sawdust----I rushed up enchanted--it was my first sunflower,memories of Blake--my visions--Harlemand Hells of the Eastern rivers, bridges clanking JoesGreasy Sandwiches, dead baby carriages, blacktreadless tires forgotten and unretreaded, thepoem of the riverbank, condoms & pots, steelknives, nothing stainless, only the dank muckand the razor-sharp artifacts passing into thepast-- The rest of the poem is available here.
Can't argue with Ginsberg. Doesn't matter what you find wrong with his ideas or attitude, his image and his way with words is too hard to get over. I find the same way about Hopkins, but I can save it for a later post. If, for every standard word or phrase, there is a shadow or an aura of connotation, there is a certain art to blending those connotations into a bright new color.
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