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Classic and Contemporary Poetry
CAR CRASH, by ALLEN GINSBERG Poet Analysis Poet's Biography First Line: Snow-blizzard sowing Last Line: Mussed & ruffled by policeman's rape Subject(s): United States; America | |||
Snow-blizzard sowing ice-powder drifts on stone fenced gardens near gray woods. Yellow hump-backed snow plow rocking giant tires round the road, red light flashing iron insect brain. Mrow, the cat with diarrhea. Sunlight settled into human form, tree rings settled age after age stone forests accumulating atoms traveled 93,000,000 miles, carbon deposits settled into beds, the mountain's head breathes light, Earth-hairs gather gold beams thru chlorophyll, poets walk between the green bushes sprouting solar language. Broken bones in bed, hips and ribs cracked by autos, snowdrifts over rubber tires, tree stump s freeze, the body stump heals temporarily in wintertime. II So that's it the body, ah! Beat yr meat in a dark bed. Boy friends wrinkle & shit in snow. Girls go fat-eyed to their mother's coffin. Cigarettes burned my tastebuds' youth, I smelled my lover's behind, This autocrash broke my hip and ribs, Ugh, Thud, nausea-breath at solar plexus paralyzed my bowels four days- Eyeglasses broke, eyeballs still intact- Thank God! alas, still alive but talk words died in my body, thoughts died in pain. A healthy day in the snow, white breath and warm wool sox, hat over ears, hot broth, nakedness in warm boudoirs, stiff prick come, fame, physic, learning, scepter, dusk and Aurora Borealis, hot pig flesh, turkey stuffing-all disappear in a broken skull. Unstable element, Sight Sound flesh Touch & Taste, all Odour, one more consciousness backseat of a steaming auto with broken nose- Unstable place to be, an easy way out by metal crash instead of mind cancer. Unreliable meat, waving a chicken bone in a hospital bed-get what's coming to you like the chicken steak you ate last year. Impossible Dr. Feelgood Forever, gotta die made of worm-stuff And worm thoughts? And who's left watching, or even remembers the car crash that severed the skull from the spinal column? Who gets out of body, or who's shut in a box of soft pain when Napalm drops from Heaven all over the abdomen, breasts and cheek-skin? & tongue cut out by inhuman knives? Cow tongue? Man tongue? What does it feel like not to talk? To die in the back seat, Ow! III Raw pine walls, ice-white windows three weeks now, snowy flatness foot-thick down valley meadows, wind roar in bare ash arms, oak branch tendrils icy gleaming, yellow stain of morning water in front door's snow-I walk out on crutches to see white moonglow make snow blue -three men just rode a space ship round the moon last week-gnashing their teeth in Biafra & Palestine, Assassins & Astronauts traveling from Athens to the sea of Venus Creatrix- Lovers' quarrels magnified decades to mad violence, half naked farm boys stand with axes at the kitchen table, trembling guilty, slicing egg grapefruit breasts on breakfast oilcloth. Growing old, growing old, forget the words, mind jumps to the grave, forget words, Love's an old word, forget words, Peter with shave-head beardface mutters & screams to himself at midnight. A new year, no party tonite, forget old loves, old words, old feelings. Snow everywhere around the house, I turned off the gas-light & came upstairs alone to read, remembering pictures of dead moon-side, my hip broken, the cat sick, earhead filled with my own strong music, in a houseful of men, sleep in underwear. Neal almost a year turned to ash, angel in his own midnight without a phonecall, Jack drunk in my mind or his Florida. Forget old friends, old words, old loves, old bodies. Bhaktivedanta advises Christ. The body lies in bed in '69 alone, a gnostic book fills the lap, Aeons revolve 'round the household, Rimbaud age 16 adolescent sneers tight lipt green-eyed oval in old time gravure -1869 his velvet tie askew, hair mussed & ruffled by policeman's rape. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...JULY FOURTH BY THE OCEAN by ROBINSON JEFFERS SHINE, PERISHING REPUBLIC by ROBINSON JEFFERS SHINE, PERISHING REPUBLIC by ROBINSON JEFFERS WATCH THE LIGHTS FADE by ROBINSON JEFFERS AFTER TENNYSON by AMBROSE BIERCE |
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