EGO CONFESSION

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I want to be known as the most brilliant man in America
Introduced to Gyalwa Karmapa heir of the Whispered Transmission
               Crazy Wisdom Practice Lineage
as the secret young wise man who visited him and winked anonymously
               decade ago in Gangtok
Prepared the way for Dharma in America without mentioning Dharma
               scribbled laughter
Who saw Blake and abandoned God
To whom the Messianic Fink sent messages darkest hour sleeping on
               steel sheets "somewhere in the Federal Prison system" weathermen
               got no Moscow Gold
who went backstage to Cecil Taylor serious chat chord structure & Time
               in a nightclub
who fucked a rose-lipped rock star in a tiny bedroom slum watched by a
               statue of Vajrasattva
and overthrew the CIA with a silent thought
Old Bohemians many years hence in Viennese beergardens'll recall
his many young lovers with astonishing faces and iron breasts
gnostic apparatus and magical observation of rainbow-lit spiderwebs
extraordinary cooking, lung stew & Spaghetti a la Vongole and recipe
               for salad dressing 3 parts oil one part vinegar much garlic and
               honey a spoonful
his extraordinary ego, at service of Dharma and completely empty
unafraid of its own self's spectre
parroting gossip of gurus and geniuses famous for their reticence
Who sang a blues made rock stars weep and moved an old black
               guitarist to laughter in Memphis
I want to be the spectacle of Poesy triumphant over trickery of the world
Omniscient breathing its own breath thru tear gas spy hallucination
whose common sense astonished gaga Gurus and rich Artistes
who called the justice department & threaten'd to Blow the Whistle
Stopt Wars, turned back petrochemical Industries' Captains to grieve &
               groan in bed
Chopped wood, built forest houses & established farms
distributed monies to poor poets & nourished imaginative genius of the
               land
Sat silent in jazz roar writing poetry with an ink pen
wasn't afraid of God or Death after his 48th year
let his brain turn to water under Laughing Gas his gold molar pulled by
               futuristic dentists
Seamen knew ocean's surface a year
carpenter later learned bevel and mattock
son, conversed with elder Pound & treated his father gently
All empty all for show, all for the sake of Poesy
to set surpassing example of sanity as measure for late generations
Exemplify Muse Power to the young avert future suicide
accepting his own lie & the gaps between lies with equal good humor
Solitary in worlds full of insects & singing birds all solitary
who had no subject but himself in many disguises
some outside his own body including empty air-filled space forests &
               cities
Even climbed mountains to create his mountain, with ice ax & crampons
               & ropes, over Glaciers

San Francisco, October 1974

© Allen Ginsberg
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© E-publisher LiterNet, 04.07.2010
The Sun Is but a Morning Star. Anthology of American Literature. Edited by Albena Bakratcheva. Varna: LiterNet, 2008-2010