after ginsberg, at this late hour
Spiritus
I
I’ve seen most minds of my generation consumed by obese anomic apathy,
sitting on couches in the pre-dawn fat-land America, blinking through 4am
infomercials, waiting for a lazy fix
Who look up to God in that first light after sleepless Marlboro night and on
bended knee pray for a higher credit limit, another strip mall, supersized
everything fried right onto their fat thighs.
Who chewed through everything, chewed their own fingers right off and kept on
going just to move and move because there’s no stopping the 24-hour neon
blinking waiting for you in your closet and under your bed fear
Fear that is alone as your are in this vast land, great planes, long long
endless highways full of other people who are also alone with their
shitless fear and so they keep driving without stopping, peeing in bottles,
fast food, fast everything, a constant exodus that won’t touch down.
Who hear, “come my Brothers and Sisters, let us pray, and please
send us your money, call now! so we can buy America and save God” and fumble deftly
for their wallets, which are empty and they are scared, growing whiter by the minute.
Who see as I do, but will not to see this land in tatters, as ice cap as dust bowl
as land of desolate starvation, and above all loneliness so eat now,
eat all you can, for the end is near.
Who are the great numbness, are becoming infinite, a vast expanse of swollen skin,
blemishless but without purpose, investing everything in forgetting or
preferably not knowing in the first place, because if history hurts, the future will mortify.
Who are mortified and above all, alone. And for them, I am asking
Are you there, God? Was Nietzsche right and I have slain you with my own
hand as you have been slain hundreds of times before? No. You are, as I,
lost in the romance of India, sitting in a cave somewhere, searching for a way to blow out.
II
I’ve seen the best minds of my generation, beautiful, resilient, fighting every
moment of their lives against this great faceless monolith of tragedy, of secret
destruction, of 1984, of a terror that started long before 911.
Who are on bicycles, in co-ops, in ashrams, with books on their noses and
patches on their pants, making art and clothing and vegan food and couch-surfing
across America listening to music that makes their hearts howl with joy.
Who are wide-eyed and hopeful and refuse to be crushed, who go to
graduate school, who drop everything to ride trains, who know Asheville and
Humboldt and every stretch of land between, and cross them all with worn happy feet.
Who are also moving without stopping, who are also secretly, deeply afraid.
Their fear is a different fear. For all their remembering, they have forgotten
their brothers and sisters on the plains, in the heart-land-heart-sutra
all-life-is-suffering-in America. Even if you are “American” and especially if you are not.
Who have read Nietzsche, who are the few not the many, who are middle class,
educated, who are poor by choice, who forget that it is not so romantic for most in winter
to crowd around the space heater with holes in their shoes.
Who are effortless but making the effort and still moving and moving towards joy and away from fear.
III
Who will follow Snyder? Who is left to love Kerouac, to tell him
that there is something beyond the first noble truth? Who will be the next Ginsberg?
I do not sing my nation-state, I am not pledging allegiance, I will not forget Japan
or the Emperor, I will not shoot my brothers or sisters for my dear old Uncle,
I will not hide in my secret temple, I refuse to assimilate.
I am angry, America.
I am angry at apathy and monoliths and happy-go-lucky and willing blindness
of all shapes and colors from trailer parks to mansions.
At my own lazy apathetic academic white middle class drinking wine in the evenings
and pretending to say something meaningful when I am really
drunk wasting everything because I am just as afraid and lonely as everyone else.
America, we are afraid!
We are Fear and Trembling. We are afraid of death, of Godlessness, of an endless world full
of people bouncing off each other like pinballs and never really touching. Of the end.
And for this we are moving and moving and never stopping. For this! I am angry,
America. Angry and alone and I am protesting, in groaning agony, I am
screeching to an infinite, spectacular halt!
We must sit in silence.
America, let us sit and hold this fear in our laps. Let it break us, undo us. Crush us
under its tremendous noiseless weight. Let us meditate.
I have been aching to tell this. We are all standing in the shadow of the Buddha,
screaming and running in place. When we stop we will know ourselves and know nothing.
We will be rent asunder and again made whole in a new image.
I will not be alone in this unmaking and unknowing.
I
I’ve seen most minds of my generation consumed by obese anomic apathy,
sitting on couches in the pre-dawn fat-land America, blinking through 4am
infomercials, waiting for a lazy fix
Who look up to God in that first light after sleepless Marlboro night and on
bended knee pray for a higher credit limit, another strip mall, supersized
everything fried right onto their fat thighs.
Who chewed through everything, chewed their own fingers right off and kept on
going just to move and move because there’s no stopping the 24-hour neon
blinking waiting for you in your closet and under your bed fear
Fear that is alone as your are in this vast land, great planes, long long
endless highways full of other people who are also alone with their
shitless fear and so they keep driving without stopping, peeing in bottles,
fast food, fast everything, a constant exodus that won’t touch down.
Who hear, “come my Brothers and Sisters, let us pray, and please
send us your money, call now! so we can buy America and save God” and fumble deftly
for their wallets, which are empty and they are scared, growing whiter by the minute.
Who see as I do, but will not to see this land in tatters, as ice cap as dust bowl
as land of desolate starvation, and above all loneliness so eat now,
eat all you can, for the end is near.
Who are the great numbness, are becoming infinite, a vast expanse of swollen skin,
blemishless but without purpose, investing everything in forgetting or
preferably not knowing in the first place, because if history hurts, the future will mortify.
Who are mortified and above all, alone. And for them, I am asking
Are you there, God? Was Nietzsche right and I have slain you with my own
hand as you have been slain hundreds of times before? No. You are, as I,
lost in the romance of India, sitting in a cave somewhere, searching for a way to blow out.
II
I’ve seen the best minds of my generation, beautiful, resilient, fighting every
moment of their lives against this great faceless monolith of tragedy, of secret
destruction, of 1984, of a terror that started long before 911.
Who are on bicycles, in co-ops, in ashrams, with books on their noses and
patches on their pants, making art and clothing and vegan food and couch-surfing
across America listening to music that makes their hearts howl with joy.
Who are wide-eyed and hopeful and refuse to be crushed, who go to
graduate school, who drop everything to ride trains, who know Asheville and
Humboldt and every stretch of land between, and cross them all with worn happy feet.
Who are also moving without stopping, who are also secretly, deeply afraid.
Their fear is a different fear. For all their remembering, they have forgotten
their brothers and sisters on the plains, in the heart-land-heart-sutra
all-life-is-suffering-in America. Even if you are “American” and especially if you are not.
Who have read Nietzsche, who are the few not the many, who are middle class,
educated, who are poor by choice, who forget that it is not so romantic for most in winter
to crowd around the space heater with holes in their shoes.
Who are effortless but making the effort and still moving and moving towards joy and away from fear.
III
Who will follow Snyder? Who is left to love Kerouac, to tell him
that there is something beyond the first noble truth? Who will be the next Ginsberg?
I do not sing my nation-state, I am not pledging allegiance, I will not forget Japan
or the Emperor, I will not shoot my brothers or sisters for my dear old Uncle,
I will not hide in my secret temple, I refuse to assimilate.
I am angry, America.
I am angry at apathy and monoliths and happy-go-lucky and willing blindness
of all shapes and colors from trailer parks to mansions.
At my own lazy apathetic academic white middle class drinking wine in the evenings
and pretending to say something meaningful when I am really
drunk wasting everything because I am just as afraid and lonely as everyone else.
America, we are afraid!
We are Fear and Trembling. We are afraid of death, of Godlessness, of an endless world full
of people bouncing off each other like pinballs and never really touching. Of the end.
And for this we are moving and moving and never stopping. For this! I am angry,
America. Angry and alone and I am protesting, in groaning agony, I am
screeching to an infinite, spectacular halt!
We must sit in silence.
America, let us sit and hold this fear in our laps. Let it break us, undo us. Crush us
under its tremendous noiseless weight. Let us meditate.
I have been aching to tell this. We are all standing in the shadow of the Buddha,
screaming and running in place. When we stop we will know ourselves and know nothing.
We will be rent asunder and again made whole in a new image.
I will not be alone in this unmaking and unknowing.