Contents

COLLECTED POEMS 1947–1980

Author’s Preface, Reader’s Manual

I. EMPTY MIRROR: GATES OF WRATH (1947–1952)

The Bricklayer’s Lunch Hour

On Reading William Blake’s “The Sick Rose”

The Eye Altering Alters All

Do We Understand Each Other?

The Voice of Rock

A Western Ballad

The Trembling of the Veil

A Meaningless Institution

Complaint of the Skeleton to Time

An Eastern Ballad

The Shrouded Stranger

Stanzas: Written at Night in Radio City

After All, What Else Is There to Say?

Sometime Jailhouse Blues

Please Open the Window and Let Me In

“Tonite all is well”

Epigram on a Painting of Golgotha

“I attempted to concentrate”

In Death, Cannot Reach What Is Most Near

This Is About Death

Ode to the Setting Sun

Long Live the Spiderweb

The Shrouded Stranger

An Imaginary Rose in a Book

The Terms in Which I Think of Reality

The Night-Apple

Cézanne’s Ports

Two Boys Went Into a Dream Diner

In Memoriam: William Cannastra, 1922–1950

Ode: My 24th Year

How Come He Got Canned at the Ribbon Factory

The Archetype Poem

A Typical Affair

A Poem on America

After Dead Souls

Marijuana Notation

Gregory Corso’s Story

I Have Increased Power

Walking home at night

“I learned a world from each”

“I made love to myself”

A Ghost May Come

“I feel as if I am at a dead end”

An Atypical Affair

345 W. 15th St.

A Crazy Spiritual

II. THE GREEN AUTOMOBILE (1953–1954)

The Green Automobile

Sakyamuni Coming Out from the Mountain

Green Valentine Blues

Siesta in Xbalba

Song (“The weight of the world”)

In back of the real

On Burroughs’ Work

Love Poem on Theme by Whitman

III. HOWL, BEFORE & AFTER: SAN FRANCISCO BAY AREA (1955–1956)

Malest Cornifici Tuo Catullo

Dream Record: June 8, 1955

“Blessed be the Muses”

Footnote to Howl

A Strange New Cottage in Berkeley

A Supermarket in California

Sunflower Sutra

Transcription of Organ Music

Sather Gate Illumination

Afternoon Seattle

In the Baggage Room at Greyhound

IV. REALITY SANDWICHES: EUROPE! EUROPE: (1957–1959)

Wrote This Last Night

Death to Van Gogh’s Ear!

Europe! Europe!

The Lion for Real

At Apollinaire’s Grave

American Change

‘Back on Times Square, Dreaming of Times Square’

Battleship Newsreel

V. KADDISH AND RELATED POEMS (1959–1960)

Kaddish: Proem, Narrative, Hymmnn, Lament, Litany and Fugue

I Beg You Come Back & Be Cheerful

To an Old Poet in Peru

Fragment: The Names II

VI. PLANET NEWS: TO EUROPE AND ASIA (1961–1963)

Who Will Take Over the Universe

Journal Night Thoughts

Television Was a Baby Crawling Toward That Deathchamber

This Form of Life Needs Sex

Sunset S.S. Azemour

Seabattle of Salamis Took Place off Perama

Stotras to Kali Destroyer of Illusions

Describe: The Rain on Dasaswamedh Ghat

Vulture Peak: Gridhakuta Hill

Patna-Benares Express

Last Night in Calcutta

Understand That This Is a Dream

The Change: Kyoto-Tokyo Express

VII. KING OF MAY: AMERICA TO EUROPE (1963–1965)

Nov. 23, 1963: Alone

Why Is God Love, Jack?

Waking in New York

I Am a Victim of Telephone

Café in Warsaw

The Moments Return

Studying the Signs

Portland Coliseum

VIII. THE FALL OF AMERICA (1965–1971)

Thru the Vortex West Coast to East (1965–1966)

Beginning of a Poem of These States

First Party at Ken Kesey’s with Hell’s Angels

Continuation of a Long Poem of These States

These States: into L.A.

A Methedrine Vision in Hollywood

Hiway Poesy: L.A.-Albuquerque-Texas-Wichita

Chances “R”

Wichita Vortex Sutra

Auto Poesy: On the Lam from Bloomington

Kansas City to Saint Louis

Bayonne Entering NYC

Growing Old Again

The Old Village Before I Die

Consulting I Ching Smoking Pot Listening to the Fugs Sing Blake

Zigzag Back Thru These States (1966—1967)
Wings Lifted over the Black Pit

Cleveland, the Flats

City Midnight Junk Strains

Autumn Gold: New England Fall

Done, Finished with the Biggest Cock

Holy Ghost on the Nod over the Body of Bliss

Bayonne Turnpike to Tuscarora

An Open Window on Chicago

Returning North of Vortex

Wales Visitation

Pentagon Exorcism

Elegy Che Guevara

War Profit Litany

Elegies for Neal Cassady (1968)
Elegy for Neal Cassady

Chicago to Salt Lake by Air

Manhattan Thirties Flash

Crossing Nation

Smoke Rolling Down Street

Swirls of black dust on Avenue D

Past Silver Durango Over Mexic Sierra-Wrinkles

On Neal’s Ashes

Going to Chicago

Grant Park: August 28, 1968

Ecologues of These States (1969–1971)
Over Denver Again

Imaginary Universes

Rising over night-blackened Detroit Streets

To Poe: Over the Planet, Air Albany–Baltimore

Falling Asleep in America

Northwest Passage

Sonora Desert-Edge

Reflections in Sleepy Eye

Independence Day

In a Moonlit Hermit’s Cabin

Rain-wet asphalt heat, garbage curbed cans overflowing

Death on All Fronts

Graffiti 12th Cubicle Men’s Room Syracuse Airport

G. S. Reading Poesy at Princeton

Friday the Thirteenth

Anti-Vietnam War Peace Mobilization

“Have You Seen This Movie?”

Bixby Canyon to Jessore Road (1971)
Bixby Canyon Ocean Path Word Breeze

September on Jessore Road

IX. MIND BREATHS ALL OVER THE PLACE (1972–1977)

Sad Dust Glories (1972–1974)
Ayers Rock/Uluru Song

Voznesensky’s “Silent Tingling”

These States: to Miami Presidential Convention

Thoughts Sitting Breathing

“What would you do if you lost it?”

Yes and It’s Hopeless

Under the world there’s a lot of ass, a lot of cunt

Returning to the Country for a Brief Visit

What I’d Like to Do

On Neruda’s Death

Sweet Boy, Gimme Yr Ass

Jaweh and Allah Battle

Sad Dust Glories

Ego Confessions (1974–1977)
Ego Confession

Who Runs America?

Thoughts on a Breath

We Rise on Sun Beams and Fall in the Night

Written on Hotel Napkin: Chicago Futures

Hospital Window

Hadda Be Playing on the Jukebox

Come All Ye Brave Boys

Gospel Noble Truths

Rolling Thunder Stones

Cabin in the Rockies

Reading French Poetry

Don’t Grow Old

“Junk Mail”

“You Might Get in Trouble”

Land O’Lakes, Wisc.

“Drive All Blames into One”

Land O’Lakes, Wisconsin: Vajrayana Seminary

For Creeley’s Ear

Haunting Poe’s Baltimore

Contest of Bards

I Lay Love on My Knee

Stool Pigeon Blues

Punk Rock Your My Big Crybaby

X. PLUTONIAN ODE (1977–1980)

Ballade of Poisons

Manhattan May Day Midnight

Adapted from Neruda’s “Que dispierte el leñador”

Blame the Thought, Cling to the Bummer

“Don’t Grow Old”

December 31, 1978

Brooklyn College Brain

Spring Fashions

Las Vegas: Verses Improvised for El Dorado H.S. Newspaper

To the Punks of Dawlish

Tübingen-Hamburg Schlafwagen

Verses Written for Student Antidraft Registration Rally 1980

After Whitman & Reznikoff

Reflections at Lake Louise

τεθνάκην δ’ όλίγω ’πιδενης ϕαίόμ’ άλαία

Fourth Floor, Dawn, Up All Night Writing Letters

“Defending the Faith”

Appendix for Collected Poems 1947–1980

Epigraphs from Original Editions

Acknowledgments

Introduction by William Carlos Williams to Empty Mirror

Introduction by William Carlos Williams to Howl

Author’s Cover Writ

Index of Proper Names

WHITE SHROUD: POEMS 1980–1985

Acknowledgments

Porch Scribbles

Industrial Waves

Homage Vajracarya

Do the Meditation Rock

The Little Fish Devours the Big Fish

A Public Poetry

“What You Up To?”

“Throw Out the Yellow Journalists of Bad Grammar & Terrible Manner”

Going to the World of the Dead

Irritable Vegetable

Thoughts Sitting Breathing II

What the Sea Throws Up at Vlissingen

I’m a Prisoner of Allen Ginsberg

221 Syllables at Rocky Mountain Dharma Center

Fighting Phantoms Fighting Phantoms

Brown Rice Quatrains

They’re All Phantoms of My Imagining

In My Kitchen in New York

It’s All So Brief

I Love Old Whitman So

Written in My Dream by W. C. Williams

One Morning I Took a Walk in China

Reading Bai Juyi—I. II. III. IV. V China Bronchitis VI. VII.
Transformation of Bai’s “A Night in Xingyang”

After Antipater

Jumping the Gun on the Sun

Cadillac Squawk

Things I Don’t Know

COSMOPOLITAN GREETINGS: POEMS 1986–1992

Acknowledgments

Preface: Improvisation in Beijing

Prologue: Visiting Father & Friends

You Don’t Know It

On the Conduct of the World Seeking Beauty Against Government

Velocity of Money

London Dream Doors

Cosmopolitan Greetings

Fifth Internationale

Europe, Who Knows?

Imitation of K.S.

I Went to the Movie of Life

When the Light Appears

On Cremation of Chögyam Trungpa, Vidyadhara

To Jacob Rabinowitz

Grandma Earth’s Song

Salutations to Fernando Pessoa

Numbers in U.S. File Cabinet

Return of Kral Majales

Elephant in the Meditation Hall

Poem in the Form of a Snake That Bites Its Tail

Mistaken Introductions

CIA Dope Calypso

N.S.A. Dope Calypso

Just Say Yes Calypso

Supplication for the Rebirth of the Vidyadhara

After the Big Parade

A Thief Stole This Poem

Deadline Dragon Comix

Angelic Black Holes

Put Down Your Cigarette Rag

Violent Collaborations

Calm Panic Campaign Promise

Now and Forever

The Charnel Ground

Fun House Antique Store

News Stays News

American Sentences

DEATH & FAME: POEMS 1993–1997

Acknowledgments

New Democracy Wish List

Peace in Bosnia-Herzegovina

After the Party

After Olav H. Hauge

These knowing age

C’mon Pigs of Western Civilization Eat More Grease

Here We Go ’Round the Mulberry Bush

New Stanzas for Amazing Grace

City Lights City

Newt Gingrich Declares War on “McGovernik Counterculture”

Pastel Sentences (Selections)

The Ballad of the Skeletons

“You know what I’m saying?”

Multiple Identity Questionnaire

Don’t Get Angry with Me

Swan Songs in the Present

Reverse the rain of Terror

Sending Message

No! No! It’s Not the End

Homeless Compleynt

Happy New Year Robert & June

Virtual Impunity Blues

Some Little Boys Dont

Think Tank Rhymes

Song of the Washing Machine

World Bank Blues

A fellow named Steven

Objective Subject

Hepatitis Body Itch …

American Sentences 1995–1997

Variations on Ma Rainey’s See See Rider

Scatalogical Observations

My Team Is Red Hot

Thirty State Bummers

“I have a nosebleed …”

“Timmy made a hot milk”

“This kind of Hepatitis can cause ya”

“Giddy-yup giddy-yup giddy-yap”

“Turn on the heat & take a seat”

Things I’ll Not Do (Nostalgias)

Index of Titles, First Lines, and Original Book Sources

About the Author

ALSO BY ALLEN GINSBERG

About the Publisher