HOWL by Allen Ginsberg, corrupted by Charles Park

I

I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by mediocrity, starving, hysterical  naked, dragging themselves thru the nword streets looking for a fashion statement.  Hoping their English assignment was thru. Knowing how to cut and paste and dumb down a presentation for an audience that knows but doesn't let on that they're being talked down to.  swimming downstream thru a crowd of lemmings. being swept along to the edge. The edge that is so cool and full of edgy goodness. It is like a loud fart in church or when you wreck your marriage by fucking a fat chick that you don't even like; thinking that anything is better than spending time with the kids. knowing that someday you'll join a 12 step program and they'll take you back, because there is no god, or Karma, or justice in the world-- but there is plenty of money to be made in the rehab market and there,s lots of jobs for former junkies who get tired and settle into  comfortable lives, surrendering to their "higher power", taking it "one day at a time"  like the beat of a hypnotic drum marching them right over the edge to their death.  There is something about the edge that wants to pull you over, so you go as close as you dare and back away; but closing your eyes doesn't make it disappear. 

II

I saw the Poet rob the grave of Walt Whitman, and proclaim the new necrophilia as he sodomized its corpse. And as he finished he released an orgasmic Howl that to me sounded like a barbaric “Yelp!” summoning the legions of zomba-wannabies to peal back the flesh of a thousand dead plagiarists looking for something fresh that was never done before. I am tired of deconstructing post modern parodies of myself, gluing snarky barbs in novel places where one would not expect and hoping it somehow “evoked” or “invoked” or “provoked” without being derivative of any other human being in all human memory. God is dead so I got a temp job as creator. Morlock!

III

They used electricity to fix the crack in your mind like an arc welder ejaculating poison ultraviolet light and scalding your naked flesh into an insensitive red black scab. Who knew these soulless bureaucrats were a part of your creative process, Did you put their names on the list of credits? did you give them royalties for the work they inspired? did you even say “thank you, sir. May I have another?” Or did you just take the cash they left on the table and slink off to the streets like the insane whore that you are? Now that you're famous, no doctor will touch you. How many years have you profiteered from the accidents of your youth? How much money did they give you for describing Neil Cassidy's butt hole? Look out the window at the streets you used to call home. We're still out here. The insane wanderers without a voice or a publisher. wallowing in our madness. Unaware of it's romantic qualities. we look through your window back at you and all we see is one of them; one of the Fixers that haunt our nightmares.

Epilogue.

Thank you Ginsberg. without you, this poem would be impossible.

cenotaph

The human heart is like the hand.

It embraces for a moment, then lets go.

And even though,

in little ways this goes on over and over again,

we arrive in an embrace,

and at last are set free as we depart.

Should we ever forget to do either,

one after another, over and over,

we die the only death we can ever know.

a broken word

What is there about a broken word?
it wonders around as if never heard
until it falls on the ground
and waits to breath its last

it looks at the world cock-eyed, on its side
and lets its thoughts wonder
no freer now than a moment before
but unleashed in the moments before it dies.

I put my hand on his chest and wait with him
never knowing anything but "soon"
and it's worse alone.