It is nonsense
says reason
It is what it is
says love
It is calamity
says calculation
It is nothing but pain
says fear
It is hopeless
says insight
It is what it is
says love
It is ludicrous
says pride
It is foolish
says caution
It is impossible
says experience
It is what it is
says love
-Erich Fried
Sometimes the sky’s too bright,
Or has too many clouds or birds,
And far away’s too sharp a sun
To nourish thinking of him.
Why is my hand too blunt
To cut in front of me
My horrid images for me,
Of over-fruitful smiles,
The weightless touching of the lip
I wish to know
I cannot lift, but can,
The creature with the angel’s face
Who tells me hurt,
And sees my body go
Down into misery?
No stopping. Put the smile
Where tears have come to dry.
The angel’s hurt is left;
His telling burns.
Sometimes a woman’s heart has salt,
Or too much blood;
I tear her breast,
And see the blood is mine,
Flowing from her, but mine,
And then I think
Perhaps the sky’s too bright;
And watch my hand,
But do not follow it,
And feel the pain it gives,
But do not ache.
History has to live with what was here,
clutching and close to fumbling all we had—
it is so dull and gruesome how we die,
unlike writing, life never finishes.
Abel was finished; death is not remote,
a flash-in-the-pan electrifies the skeptic,
his cows crowding like skulls against high-voltage wire,
his baby crying all night like a new machine.
As in our Bibles, white-faced, predatory,
the beautiful, mist-drunken hunter’s moon ascends—
a child could give it a face: two holes, two holes,
my eyes, my mouth, between them a skull’s no-nose—
O there’s a terrifying innocence in my face
drenched with the silver salvage of the mornfrost.
Strong ankled, sun burned, almost naked,The daughters of CaliforniaEducate reluctant humanists;Drive into their skulls with tennis ballsThe unhappy realizationThat nature is still stronger than man.The special Hellenic privilegeOf the special intellect seeps outAt last in this irrigated soil.Sweat of athletes and juice of loversAre stronger than Socrates’ hemlock;And the games of scrupulous EuclidVanish in the gymnopaedia.-by Kenneth Rexroth (1905 – 1982)
“From childhood’s hour I have not been
As others were; I have not seen
As others saw; I could not bring
My passions from a common spring.
From the same source I have not taken
My sorrow; I could not awaken
My heart to joy at the same tone;
And all I loved, I loved alone…”
― Edgar Allan Poe, The Poetry of Edgar Allan Poe, Vol. 2
What thoughts I have of you tonight, Walt Whitman, for I walked
down the sidestreets under the trees with a headache self-conscious looking
at the full moon.
In my hungry fatigue, and shopping for images, I went into the neon
fruit supermarket, dreaming of your enumerations!
What peaches and what penumbras! Whole families shopping at
night! Aisles full of husbands! Wives in the avocados, babies in the tomatoes!
–and you, García Lorca, what were you doing down by the watermelons?
I saw you, Walt Whitman, childless, lonely old grubber, poking
among the meats in the refrigerator and eyeing the grocery boys.
I heard you asking questions of each: Who killed the pork chops?
What price bananas? Are you my Angel?
I wandered in and out of the brilliant stacks of cans following you,
and followed in my imagination by the store detective.
We strode down the open corridors together in our solitary fancy
tasting artichokes, possessing every frozen delicacy, and never passing the
cashier.
Where are we going, Walt Whitman? The doors close in a hour.
Which way does your beard point tonight?
(I touch your book and dream of our odyssey in the supermarket and
feel absurd.)
Will we walk all night through solitary streets? The trees add shade
to shade, lights out in the houses, we’ll both be lonely.
Will we stroll dreaming of the lost America of love past blue automo-
biles in driveways, home to our silent cottage?
Ah, dear father, graybeard, lonely old courage-teacher, what America
did you have when Charon quit poling his ferry and you got out on a
smoking bank and stood watching the boat disappear on the black waters of
Lethe?
–Allen Ginsberg, Berkeley, 1955
February 5th, 2014 mark the 100th anniversary of the birth of William S. Burroughs, the rebel, the junkie, the exile and the genius that we love.
Burroughs, the postmodernist novelist, poet, spoken word performer and a key figure of the Beat Generation.
Fear and the Monkey – A poem by William S. Burroughs
Author’s note: This text arranged in my New York loft, which is the converted locker room of an old YMCA. Guests have reported the presence of a ghost boy. So this is a Oui-Ja board poem taken from Dumb Instrument, a book of poems by Denton Welch, and spells and invocations from the Necronomicon, a highly secret magical text released in paperback. There is a pinch of Rimbaud, a dash of St-John Perse, an oblique reference to Toby Tyler with the Circus, and the death of his pet monkey.
Turgid itch and the perfume of death
On a whispering south wind
A smell of abyss and of nothingness
Dark Angel of the wanderers howls through the loft
With sick smelling sleep
Morning dream of a lost monkey
Born and muffled under old whimsies
With rose leaves in closed jars
Fear and the monkey
Sour taste of green fruit in the dawn
The air milky and spiced with the trade winds
White flesh was showing
His jeans were so old
Leg shadows by the sea
Morning light
On the sky light of a little shop
On the odor of cheap wine in the sailors’ quarter
On the fountain sobbing in the police courtyards
On the statue of moldy stone
On the little boy whistling to stray dogs.
Wanderers cling to their fading home
A lost train whistle wan and muffled
In the loft night taste of water
Morning light on milky flesh
Turgid itch ghost hand
Sad as the death of monkeys
Thy father a falling star
Crystal bone into thin air
Night sky
Dispersal and emptiness.
Hal Chasse, Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg and William Burroughs (l. to r.) on the campus of Columbia University, 1945
Nova Express (The Nova Trilogy)
And The Hippos Were Boiled In Their Tanks
Burroughs, the shotgun painter.
“Nothing exists until or unless it is observed. An artist is making something exist by observing it. And his hope for other people is that they will also make it exist by observing it. I call it ‘creative observation.” – William S. Burroughs
“X-Ray Man”, the figure that repeatedly appears in number of Burroughs’ art works. Also used as Sonic Youth’s ‘nyc ghosts & flowers’ album cover in 2000.
Death by lethal injection, April 1990
“The first and most important thing an individual can do is to become an individual again, decontrol himself, train himself as to what is going on and win back as much independent ground for himself as possible” – William S. Burroughs
Burroughs, a source of inspiration for many artists.
William S. Burroughs and Brion Gysin
William S. Burroughs and Joe Strummer of The Clash
William S. Burroughs and Patti Smith
Shadow Vue 