Collected Poems 1947-1997
Philip—Philip Glass, American composer.
Sunil—Sunil Ganguly, Indian poet-friend.
Choudui Chowh Nimtallah—Calcutta neighborhood where the Author lived in the summer of 1962, near the burning ghats.
Soco Chico—Square in the medina, Tangiers, where outdoor cafes were popular with the Author, William S. Burroughs, and Paul Bowles.
Paul B.—Paul Bowles, American writer living in Tangier.
Baluchistan—Baluchistan province in Pakistan, bordered by Afghanistan on the north and Iran on the west.
Dunhuang—Pinyin Dunhuang, city in western Kansu Sheng province, China.
Buba—(Yiddish) Grandmother Rebecca Ginsberg was Allen Ginsberg’s grandmother, buried in this cemetery.
INDEX OF TITLES, FIRST LINES, AND ORIGINAL BOOK SOURCES
The pagination of this electronic edition does not match the edition from which it was created. To locate a specific passage, please use the search feature of your e-book reader.
Poem titles appear in italics. Books in which the poems originally appeared are abbreviated as follows:
AD Airplane Dreams
AE As Ever
AW Angkor Wat
CG Cosmopolitan Greetings
D&F Death & Fame
EM Empty Mirror
Fall The Fall of America
GW The Gates of Wrath
Howl Howl
IH Iron Horse
IJ Indian Journals
J Journals: Early Fifties Early Sixties
Kaddish Kaddish
MB Mind Breaths
Mss. Unpublished Manuscript
PAOTP Poems All Over the Place
PN Planet News
PO Plutonian Ode
RS Reality Sandwiches
SDG Sad Dust Glories
SHD Straight Hearts’ Delight
WS White Shroud
A bitter cold winter night, 273
A brown piano in diamond, 373
A Crazy Spiritual (EM), 83
A crow sits on the prayerflagpole, (CG), 1036
ADAPTED FROM Neruda’s “Que dispierte el leñador” (PO), 704
A Desolation (EM), 64
A Dream (GW), 52
A drunken night in my house with a, 132
Aether (RS), 250
A faithful youth, 83
A fellow named Steven (D&F), 1135
A fellow named Steven (D&F), 1135
After All, What Else Is There to Say? (EM), 37
After Antipater (WS), 921
After Dead Souls (EM), 73
After 53 years, 730
After Lalon (CG), 1019
After Long Absence, I returned from the land of the dead (WS), 916
After midnite, Second Avenue horseradish Beef (CG), 948
Afternoon Seattle (RS), 158
After Olav H. Hauge (D&F), 1069
After the Big Parade (CG), 1010
After the Party (D&F), 1068
After Thoughts (Fall), 544
After Whitman & Reznikoff(PO), 740
After Yeats (PN), 351
A Ghost May Come (EM), 79
Ah, still Lord, ah, sweet Divinity, 28
Ah War (D&F), 1077
Ah War bigness addiction (D&F), 1077
Airplane Blues (WS), 859
Albany throned in snow! It’s winter, Poe, 522
All afternoon cutting bramble blackberries, 143
Allen when you get angry you got two choices— (CG), 951
All over Europe people are saying, “Who knows?” (CG), 959
Alone, 341
a lot of mouths and cocks, 606
Always Ether Comes, 509
A Mad Gleam (GW), 24
A Meaningless Institution (EM), 23
America (Howl), 154
America is like Russia, 72
America I’ve given you all and now I’m nothing, 154
American Change (RS), 194
American Sentences (CG), 1048
American Sentences 1995–1997 (D&F), 1042
A Methedrine Vision in Hollywood (PN), 388
amid glasses clinking, mineral water, schnapps (D&F), 1068
An Asphodel (Howl), 96
An Atypical Affair (EM), 80
and ate so much the bill was five dollars, 63
And the Communists have nothing to offer but fat cheeks, 361
And the youth free stripling bounding along the Hills of Color, 673
An Eastern Ballad (GW), 26
A new moon looks down on our sick sweet planet, 538
Angelic Black Holes (CG), 1025
Anger (D&F), 1102
Angkor—on top of the terrace, 314
Angkor Wat, 314
An Imaginary Rose in a Book (GW), 57
An itch in the auditory canal scratches for years, (WS), 886
An Open Window on Chicago (Fall), 481
Anti–Vietnam War Peace Mobilization (Fall), 549
A Poem on America (EM), 72
A Prophecy (Fall), 504
A Public Poetry (WS), 869
Arguments (WS), 885
Arise ye prisoners of your mind-set (CG), 957
Art recalls the memory, 43
As I cross my kitchen floor the thought of Death returns, (CG), 979
As I’m no longer young in life (WS), 915
As I passed thru Moscow’s grass lots I heard, 655
As Is you’re bearing (WS), 901
As orange dusk-light falls on an old idea, 295
A Strange New Cottage in Berkeley (Howl), 143
A Supermarket in California (Howl), 144
At Apollinaire’s Grave (Kaddish), 188
At gauzy dusk, thin haze like cigarette smoke, 642
A Thief Stole This Poem (CG), 1016
a thousand sunsets behind tramcar wires in open skies of Warsaw, 360
At midnight the teacher lectures on his throne, 741
At 66 just learning how to take care of my body (CG), 1045
A Typical Affair (EM), 71
Aunt Rose—now—might I see you, 192
Auto Poesy: On the Lam from Bloomington (Fall), 420
Autumn Gold: New England Fall (Fall), 469
Autumn Leaves (CG), 1046
A Very Dove (GW), 15
A very Dove will have her love, 15
A voice in the kitchen light: (D&F), 1133
A Vow (Fall), 468
A Western Ballad (GW), 21
Ayers Rock / Uluru Song (MB), 587
Aztec sandstone waterholes known by Moapa’ve, 728
Back on Times Square, Dreaming of Times Square’ (RS), 196
Bad Poem (D&F), 1115
Ballade of Poisons (PAOTP), 700
Balmy, hotter outside than in the living room— (WS), 843
Baltimore bones grown maliciously under sidewalk, 672
Bare skin is my wrinkled sack, 34
Battleship Newsreel (RS), 214
Bayonne Entering NYC (Fall), 427
Bayonne Turnpike to Tuscarora (Fall), 476
Because I lay my, 343
Because this world is on the wing and what cometh no man can know, 263
Because we met at dusk, 247
Beginning of a Poem of These States (Fall), 377
Being as Now has been re-invented (D&F), 1115
Be kind to your self, it is only one, 367
Bend knees, shift weight— (WS), 898
Big Beat (PN), 357
Big deal bargains TV meat stock market news paper headlines (CG), 1011
Big Eats (CG), 1011
Bill Burroughs in Tangiers slowly transfiguring into Sanctity, 269
Birdbrain! (PO), 746
Birdbrain runs the World, 746
Birds chirp in the brick backyard Radio (CG), 1017
Bixby Canyon (Fall), 505
Bixby Canyon Ocean Path Word Breeze (Fall), 567
Black Magicians, 332
Black Shroud(WS), 911
Blame the Thought, Cling to the Bummer (PO), 717
Blandly mothe
r, 86
Blasts rip Newspaper Gray Mannahatta’s mid day Air Spires, 546
Blessed be the Muses (RS), 133
Bop Lyrics (GW), 50
Bop Sh’bam (D&F), 1158
Born in this world, 649
Bowel Song (D&F), 1097
Brain washed by numerous mountain streams (CG), 968
brilliant network-lights tentacle dim suburbs, 521
Brooklyn College Brain (PO), 725
Brown Rice Quatrains (WS), 887
Brown stonepeaks rockstumps, 530
Buddha died and, 669
Burned out Burned out Burned out (D&F), 1125
Busride along waterfront down Yessler under street bridge, 158
Butterfly Mind (D&F), 1134
Cabin in the Rockies (MB), 653
Cadillac Squawk (WS), 925
Café in Warsaw (PN), 358
Calm Panic Campaign Promise (CG), 1035
Candle light blue banners incense, 670
Capitol Air (PO), 751
Car Crash (Fall), 516
Carmel Valley (PN), 381
Cars slide minute down asphalt lanes in front of, 637
Car wheels roar over freeway concrete, 561
Catholicism capish (D&F), 1087
Cézanne’s Ports (EM), 61
Chances “R” (PN), 401
Chicago to Salt Lake by Air (Fall), 498
China be China, B.C. Clay armies underground (WS), 913
CIA Dope Calypso (CG), 997
City Flats, Coal yards and brown rivers, 435
City Lights City (D&F), 1081
City Midnight Junk Strains (PN), 465
Cleveland, the Flats (Fall), 437
Clouds’ silent shadows passing across the Sun, 697
C’mon Jack (PAOTP), 657
C’mon Pigs of Western Civilization Eat More Grease (D&F), 1071
Come All Ye Brave Boys (MB), 645
Come all you young men that proudly display, 645
Complaint of the Skeleton to Time (GW), 25
Consulting I Ching Smoking Pot Listening to the Fugs Sing Blake (Air Dreams), 434
Contest of Bards (MB), 673
Continuation of a Long Poem of These States (Fall), 383
Cool black night thru the redwoods, 382
Cosmopolitan Greetings (CG), 953
Coughing in the Morning, 469
covered with yellow leaves, 539
Crash (GW), 57
“Criminal possession of a controlled substance, 613
Crossing Nation (Fall), 507
Dawn, a mastiff howls on the porch across the street (WS), 926
Dawn’s orb orange-raw shining over Palisades, 640
Deadline Dragon Comix (CG), 1018
Dear Jacob I received your translation, what kind (CG), 972
Dear Lord Guru who pervades the space of my mind (CG), 1009
Death & Fame (D&F), 1130
Death News (PN), 305
Death on All Fronts (Fall), 538
Death to Van Gogh’s Ear! (Kaddish), 175
December 31, 1978 (PO), 722
“Defending the Faith” (PO), 750
Delicate eyes that blinked blue Rockies all ash, 513
Denver tower blocks group’d under gray haze, 620
Describe: The Rain on Dasaswamedh Ghat (PN), 303
Diamond Bells (D&F), 1118
Diana & Roger Napoleon’s real estate empire (CG), 1045
Does that mean war on every boy with more than one earring on the same ear? (D&F), 1082
Done, Finished with the Biggest Cock (Fall), 474
Done, finished, with the biggest cock you ever saw, 474
Don’t Get Angry with Me (D&F), 1104
Don’t get angry with me (D&F), 1104
Don’t Grow Old (MB), 659
“Don’t Grow Old” (PO), 718
Don’t send me letters Don’t send me poems (WS), 877
Dont smoke dont smoke dont smoke (CG), 1029
Do the Meditation Rock (WS), 863
Do We Understand Each Other? (GW), 17
Dread spirit in me that I ever try, 16
Dream (D&F), 1159
Dream Record: June 8, 1955 (RS), 132
“Drive All Blames into One” (MB), 669
Drowse Murmurs (PN), 365
Dylan is about the Individual against the whole of creation (D&F), 1089
Easter Sunday (Fall), 524
Eat Eat more marbled Sirloin more Pork’n (D&F), 1071
Ecologue (Fall), 550
Ego Confession (MB), 631
Élan that lifts me above the clouds (D&F), 1100
Elegy Che Guevara (Fall), 492
Elegy for Neal Cassady (Fall), 495
Elements on my table, 79
Elephant in the Meditation Hall (CG), 984
Empire Air (WS), 893
End of Millennium (CG), 1034
Entering Minetta’s soft yellow chrome, to the acrid bathroom, 433
Enthroned in plastic, shrouded in wool, diamond crowned, 439
Epigram on a Painting of Golgotha (GW), 41
Eroica (PO), 748
European Trib. boy’s face photo’d eyes opened, 492
Europe! Europe! (Kaddish), 179
Europe, Who Knows? (CG), 959
Everybody excretes different loads (D&F), 1078
Everyday (CG), 1042
Every time I read Pessoa I think (CG), 975
Excrement (D&F), 1078
Falling Asleep in America (Fall), 525
Father Guru (PO), 700
Father Guru unforlorn, 702
Fie My Fum (GW), 31
Fifth Internationale (CG), 957
Fighting Phantoms Fighting Phantoms (WS), 884
Fighting phantoms we have car wrecks on Hollywood Freeway (WS), 884
First Party at Ken Kesey’s with Hell’s Angels (PN), 382
Five AM. (D&F), 1100
Flash Back (Fall), 542
Flying Elegy (MB), 620
Footnote to Howl, 142
For Creeley’s Ear (PAOTP), 671
for their descent, 133
Forty feet long sixty feet high hotel, 302
Four Haiku (J), 145
4 Sniffs & I’m High, 250
Fourth Floor, Dawn, Up All Night Writing Letters (PO), 744
Fragment 1956 (RS), 157
Fragment: The Names II (PAOTP), 269
Friday the Thirteenth (Fall), 546
From Great Consciousness vision Harlem 1948 buildings, 603
Full moon over the shopping mall, 727
Fun House Antique Store (CG), 1043
Funny Death (RS), 208
Fyodor (EM), 40
Galilee Shore (PN), 297
Garden State (PO), 726
General Mother Teresa (D&F), 1066
Get beat up on TV squirming on the ground for driving irregular (CG), 1024
Get It? (CG), 1024
“Giddy-yup giddy-yup giddy-yap” (D&F), 1156
Go back to Egypt and the Greeks, 24
God (D&F), 1076
God answers with my doom! I am annulled, 265
Going to Chicago (Fall), 514
Going to the World of the Dead (WS), 875
Going to the World of the Dead Stalin & Hitler in Bed (WS), 875
Gold beard combd down like chinese fire gold hair, 545
Gone Gone Gone (D&F), 1106
Good Luck (D&F), 1121
Gospel Noble Truths (MB), 649
Graffiti 12th Cubicle Men’s Room Syracuse Airport (Fall), 543
Grandma Earth’s Song (CG), 973
Grant Park: August 28, 1968 (Fall), 515
Graphic Winces (CG), 960
Grass yellow hill, 381
Gray clouds blot sunglare, mountains float west, plane, 519
Gray water tanks in gray mist, 476
Green air, children sat under trees with the old, 515
Green Valentine Blues (Mss.), 103
Gregory Corso’s Story (EM), 75
Growing Old A
gain, 431
Grim Skeleton (PO), 698
Grim skeleton come back & put me out of Action, 698
G S. Reading Poesy at Princeton (Fall), 545
Guru (PN), 364
Guru Om (Fall), 561
Hadda be flashing like the Daily Double, 643
Hadda Be Playing on the Jukebox (MB), 643
Half Asleep (D&F), 1136
Happening Now? (WS), 868
Happening now? End of Earth? Apocalypse days? (WS), 868
Happy New Year Robert & June (D&F), 1117
Happy New Year Robert & June (D&F), 1117
Hard Labor (CG), 948
Haunting Poe’s Baltimore (MB), 672
Havana 1953 (RS), 100
“Have You Seen This Movie?” (Fall), 563
Headless husk legs wrapped round a grass spear, (WS), 883
Hearing the all pervading scintillation of empty bells I realize (D&F), 1118
Heat (IJ), 302
He cast off all his golden robes, 65
He drags his bare feet, 98
Hepatitis (D&F), 1139
Hepatitis Body Itch … (D&F), 1139
Here at the atomic Crack-end of Time XX Century, 388
Here We Go ’Round the Mulberry Bush (D&F), 1073
He rises he stretches he liquefies he is hammered again, 173
High on Laughing Gas, 197
Hiway Poesy: L.A.–Albuquerque–Texas–Wichita (Fall), 390
Holy Ghost on the Nod over the Body of Bliss (PN), 475
Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy!, 142
Homage Vajracarya (WS), 850
Homeless Compleynt (D&F), 1116
Homework (PO), 739
Hospital Window (MB), 642
How Come He Got Canned at the Ribbon Factory (EM), 68
How’d I get angry (D&F), 1102
Howl (Howl), 134
How lucky we are to have windows! (WS), 895
How sick I am, 74
Huffing puffing upstairs downstairs telephone (CG), 1012
Hum Bom! (CG), 1004
Hum. Bom! (Fall), 576
hundred million cars running out of gasoline, 604
Hymn (EM), 44
I Am a Victim of Telephone (PN), 352
I am Fake Saint, 717
I am I, old Father Fisheye that begat the ocean, 267
I am married and would like to fuck someone else, 543
I Am Not (WS), 881
I am summoned from my bed (WS), 889
I am the King of the Universe (CG), 971
I attempted to concentrate (EM), 41
I Beg You Come Back & Be Cheerful (RS), 243
I came home and found a lion in my living room, 182
I came home from the movies with nothing on my mind, 81
I cannot sleep, I cannot sleep, 18
I can’t answer (D&F), 1138
I climbed the hillside to the lady’s house (CG), 941