ALLEN
GINSBERG
COLLECTED
POEMS
1947–1997
Collected Poems 1947–1997 is a compilation of the texts of
Collected Poems 1947–1980, White Shroud: Poems 1980–1985,
Cosmopolitan Greetings: Poems 1986–1992, and
Death & Fame: Poems 1993–1997.
The Estate would like to express gratitude to Eliot Katz for his dedication and assistance in preparation of this manuscript, Danny Mulligan at HarperCollins for attentive coordinating, and Jeffrey Posternak at the Wylie Agency for his tireless intermediation.
Contents
COLLECTED POEMS 1947–1980
Author’s Preface, Reader’s Manual
I. EMPTY MIRROR: GATES OF WRATH (1947–1952)
In Society
The Bricklayer’s Lunch Hour
Two Sonnets
On Reading William Blake’s “The Sick Rose”
The Eye Altering Alters All
A Very Dove
Vision 1948
Do We Understand Each Other?
The Voice of Rock
Refrain
A Western Ballad
The Trembling of the Veil
A Meaningless Institution
A Mad Gleam
Complaint of the Skeleton to Time
Psalm I
An Eastern Ballad
Sweet Levinsky
Psalm II
Fie My Fum
Pull My Daisy
The Shrouded Stranger
Stanzas: Written at Night in Radio City
After All, What Else Is There to Say?
Sometime Jailhouse Blues
Please Open the Window and Let Me In
“Tonite all is well”
Fyodor
Epigram on a Painting of Golgotha
“I attempted to concentrate”
Metaphysics
In Death, Cannot Reach What Is Most Near
This Is About Death
Hymn
Sunset
Ode to the Setting Sun
Paterson
Bop Lyrics
A Dream
Long Live the Spiderweb
The Shrouded Stranger
An Imaginary Rose in a Book
Crash
The Terms in Which I Think of Reality
The Night-Apple
Cézanne’s Ports
The Blue Angel
Two Boys Went Into a Dream Diner
A Desolation
In Memoriam: William Cannastra, 1922–1950
Ode: My 24th Year
How Come He Got Canned at the Ribbon Factory
The Archetype Poem
A Typical Affair
A Poem on America
After Dead Souls
Marijuana Notation
Gregory Corso’s Story
I Have Increased Power
Walking home at night
“I learned a world from each”
“I made love to myself”
A Ghost May Come
“I feel as if I am at a dead end”
An Atypical Affair
345 W. 15th St.
A Crazy Spiritual
Wild Orphan
II. THE GREEN AUTOMOBILE (1953–1954)
The Green Automobile
An Asphodel
My Alba
Sakyamuni Coming Out from the Mountain
Havana 1953
Green Valentine Blues
Siesta in Xbalba
Song (“The weight of the world”)
In back of the real
On Burroughs’ Work
Love Poem on Theme by Whitman
Over Kansas
III. HOWL, BEFORE & AFTER: SAN FRANCISCO BAY AREA (1955–1956)
Malest Cornifici Tuo Catullo
Dream Record: June 8, 1955
“Blessed be the Muses”
Howl
Footnote to Howl
A Strange New Cottage in Berkeley
A Supermarket in California
Four Haiku
Sunflower Sutra
Transcription of Organ Music
Sather Gate Illumination
America
Fragment 1956
Afternoon Seattle
Tears
Scribble
In the Baggage Room at Greyhound
Psalm III
Many Loves
Ready to Roll
IV. REALITY SANDWICHES: EUROPE! EUROPE: (1957–1959)
POEM Rocket
Squeal
Wrote This Last Night
Death to Van Gogh’s Ear!
Europe! Europe!
The Lion for Real
The Names
At Apollinaire’s Grave
Message
To Lindsay
To Aunt Rose
American Change
‘Back on Times Square, Dreaming of Times Square’
Laughing Gas
Funny Death
My Sad Self
Ignu
Battleship Newsreel
V. KADDISH AND RELATED POEMS (1959–1960)
Kaddish: Proem, Narrative, Hymmnn, Lament, Litany and Fugue
Mescaline
Lysergic Acid
I Beg You Come Back & Be Cheerful
Psalm IV
To an Old Poet in Peru
Aether
Magic Psalm
The Reply
The End
Man’s glory
Fragment: The Names II
VI. PLANET NEWS: TO EUROPE AND ASIA (1961–1963)
Who Will Take Over the Universe
Journal Night Thoughts
Television Was a Baby Crawling Toward That Deathchamber
This Form of Life Needs Sex
Sunset S.S. Azemour
Seabattle of Salamis Took Place off Perama
Galilee Shore
Stotras to Kali Destroyer of Illusions
To P.O.
Heat
Describe: The Rain on Dasaswamedh Ghat
Death News
Vulture Peak: Gridhakuta Hill
Patna-Benares Express
Last Night in Calcutta
Understand That This Is a Dream
Angkor Wat
The Change: Kyoto-Tokyo Express
VII. KING OF MAY: AMERICA TO EUROPE (1963–1965)
Nov. 23, 1963: Alone
Why Is God Love, Jack?
Morning
Waking in New York
After Yeats
I Am a Victim of Telephone
Today
Message II
Big Beat
Café in Warsaw
The Moments Return
Kral Majales
Guru
Drowse Murmurs
Who Be Kind To
Studying the Signs
Portland Coliseum
VIII. THE FALL OF AMERICA (1965–1971)
Thru the Vortex West Coast to East (1965–1966)
Beginning of a Poem of These States
Carmel Valley
First Party at Ken Kesey’s with Hell’s Angels
Continuation of a Long Poem of These States
These States: into L.A.
A Methedrine Vision in Hollywood
Hiway Poesy: L.A.-Albuquerque-Texas-Wichita
Chances “R”
Wichita Vortex Sutra
Auto Poesy: On the Lam from Bloomington
Kansas City to Saint Louis
Bayonne Entering NYC
Growing Old Again
Uptown
The Old Village Before I Die
Consulting I Ching Smoking Pot Listening to the Fugs Sing Blake
Zigzag Back Thru These States (1966—1967)
Wings Lifted over the Black Pit
Cleveland, the Flats
To the Body
Iron Horse
City Midnight Junk Strains
A Vow
Autumn Gold: New England Fall
Done, Finished with the Biggest Cock
Holy Ghost on the Nod over the Body of Bliss
Bayonne Turnpike to Tuscarora
An Open Window on Chicago
Returning North of Vortex
Wales Visitation
Pentagon Exorcism
Elegy Che Guevara
War Profit Litany
Elegies for Neal Cassady (1968)
Elegy for Neal Cassady
Chicago to Salt Lake by Air
Kiss Ass
Manhattan Thirties Flash
Please Master
A Prophecy
Bixby Canyon
Crossing Nation
Smoke Rolling Down Street
Pertussin
Swirls of black dust on Avenue D
Violence