P O E T S ON THE LINE
a continuing anthologyFounded by Andrew Gettler & Linda Lerner
NO. 9 & 10 T H E M I L L E N N I U M I S S U E
Edited by Linda Lerner
JULIA VINOGRAD
Ginsberg
No blame. Anyone who wrote Howl and Kaddish
earned the right to make any possible mistake
for the rest of his life.
I just wish I hadn't made this mistake with him.
It was during the Vietnam war
and he was giving a great protest reading
in Washington Square Park
and nobody wanted to leave.
So Ginsberg got the idea, "I'm going to shout
"the war is over" as loud as I can," he said
"and all of you run over the city
in different directions
yelling the war is over, shout it in offices,
shops, everywhere and when enough people
believe the war is over
why, not even the politicians
will be able to keep it going."
I thought it was a great idea at the time
a truly poetic idea.
So when Ginsberg yelled I ran down the street
and leaned in the doorway
of the sort of respectable down on its luck cafeteria
where librarians and minor clerks have lunch
and I yelled "the war is over."
And a little old lady looked up
from her cottage cheese and fruit salad.
She was so ordinary she would have been invisible
except for the terrible light
filling her face as she whispered
"My son. My son is coming home."
I got myself out of there and was sick in some bushes.
That was the first time I believed there was a war.
Street Musician
Electric guitar on the street.
Long greasy hair whipped over his grin.
Camouflage shirt, spare a war?
Heavy veined arms strangle his instrument
thumbs first. It yells and gulps for air.
He stamps a boot down as if a creeping arm
were grasping for his ankle.
And he throws his body over the baby amplifier
as a grenade lands.
Guitar strings stretched over an explosion.
About 25. Relishing every stolen breath
between his teeth.
He's got the goodlooks that only come
from not being dead.
Every day the music dies in his place
under his angry hands.
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