Halo

For Allen Ginsberg 1926-1997

darkness
silences the racing mind
darkness
races the silenced mind
darkness
erases the mindless silence

Allen
visionary hard-sell salesman
pumping life into a generation
half dozen beat souls
outlaw spirit quest for belief
amidst
Eisenhower optimism tinted red with nuclear fear
pistol-tongue protest whiplash smile
adamant protective absorbency
of all
that was in need of exposure

exposure
ex-poseur
procured expulsion from American life set boredom
dreamchase
mind peeling candor

Take it
any way
take it, it is yours
it is your hard-earned right.
your right as breathing cell bag
your right as moving bone sack
your right as discerning human torch
as compassionate disillusionment of all that is dreamt
your right as festering, jubiliant earth walker

you're right
as brilliant hopeful realist
incendiary, pessimistic humanist

- 1 - pharmacological test case miracle baby-
as exploding head intellect
drawn from madness
familial sanitarium nightmare cushion,
drawn from edge to filigree edge
booklets filled with archival scrawl
(to someday buy you this waking Heaven in which to die)
redemptive sun thru plate-glass
unlike Moloch-peeping headcase 1948 Blakeian visionscape

fire escape
jerk-off window;
dissimilar to minuscule shuttering doors of perception
shut-eye puking yage tornado vision.
Your legacy:
unflinching, stalwart dedicated memory.

drawn from jazz drench Denver, smoke and Benzedrine clench
'46 Greyhound to New York City
100 mph down streets of callow legs to iron flesh
spirit muse
night embrace life embrace.....
drawn from myriad bound pages
reflecting off ever-present eyeglass frailty.....
Paterson dim night oppressive beauty-madness
red breakdown.

Soaked in inventive creation through fleshy eyeball circuitry:
volumes, sheaths of paper, forests of tree-death magnificence
The Written Page.
words.....sounds to thought to pen to paper to eyeglass eye
brain thought mouth ears
of millions.

touch his hand he lies still
touch his heart he howls always
touch his life burns fingertips infinitely.

As a young man I found his life overwhelming
a life lived in epic proportions
told with a fierce intelligence that shamed me of my trivial learning
told with a lion-hearted courage and fearlessness that cast the deepest of

- 2 - shadows
told with a sweetness of perversity that fondled my own tortured simple-
minded lust
allowing freedom to be a grail of the holiest nature
told with an ease of humor and self-deprecating serious snicker
allowing my humanity to become bearable and graceful in its infancy.

Today, I circle the rose
He rose from his circle
devilish, bearded cherubim
without whom
worship muse
delicate abandon
without whom.....

were it not for your seduction of language
your explosion of promotion of rebellious like-minds
vast, loyal dedication to the proliferation of free
free the shackled chains of your cronies' lost sentences
free butcher-paper novelization spiel
free dream cinema blown-up close-up rise-up screaming portraits
of your small circle of friends, lovers, muse
friends
begat legend (in your minds) erased dungeons (in our minds)
begat
beat gat
beat at bows of rebellious arbor, bows of religious ardor
begat dylan bohemian pot hip nudist hippie peace-nik mantra punk
anti-
anything but hope
appetite
craving on
ion.

may dictation serve the hopeless
May Day station swerve the blindness
meditation curve the sublimeless.

smoke clears hoffman of all charges
charges fire
flower-petal war gag
Nations burn, Nixon free
gag chokes national hypnosis.....split-second glimmer:
hope

- 3 - rings infernal
still
hope rings.

(causes, he pauses
help a man cut his losses)

infinite honesty.
infinite wisdom.
infinite jism.
infinite space in one's skull
fill the chasm
relentless search for the "more"-gasm.....
man's search for the better broomstick
bottomless cup of joe
the better slogan, the faster dupe, the cleaner whistle
the tastier morsel, the harder cock, the bigger payoff,
the catchier chorus, deeper commitment, more convincing lie,
the truer-ism.
man's search of what's left, what is right

to "accept madness, approve unconvention."
reflections bounce off sparkling moments. clicks of the stopwatch.
breaths in an ear. tears on a casket.
birth of morning.
words on paper, words in souls, memory.
balance.
the grand attraction of the breaking of rules.

If "Butler has no balls" then who ousted who?
Dirty windows signal breakthrough
letting "imagination go.....
open secrecy.....
scribble(d) magic lines from real mind"

Herbert's heisted hoodlum magic
Bull Lee, Solomon, Gregory yammer

- 4 - Times Square cafeteria showdown
Levinsky, Stofsky, Alvah Goldbook,
Carlo lambastes Pokerino
Jean Louis staggers
Chianti glare his eye.

Six @ Six
"when poetry went public"
espousing the literature of risk
the widening circle of kicks
kicks
kickstart the heart of spoken expression
kickstart the soul of a slumbering nation
kicksmart the whole of a head's constant repression
kicks
kicks
kicks.

in a small town in Pennsylvania a patriot, leader of men
buyer/seller of the American Dream
draws record crowds to the Moreland Funeral Home
Pledge of Allegiance, National Anthem, Boy Scout Oath, Taps.
This screwball loved by all
disciplinarian, humble good-deeder
His ashes last wished into an over-sized Pepsi can
and buried on his father's chest.

two days later
"legendary poet Allen Ginsberg died
among friends at home in New York City....."
diagnosis gives in to coma gives in to breathless peace
gives in to bones
dust
time
again, memory.
"and you die when you die.....OMMMMMM....."

Those poor Heaven's Gate folks were mistaken
too late to unpack their bags
redeem their Nike receipts
return their movie advance.....

- 5 - this comet comes for the sentient soul of a curly black halo.

April 5-6 1997

Brad Riesau 1997

©1997 Brad Riesau, used by permission.