[1223] A Vow

Guest poem sent in by Aseem Kaul <mithwarg@>

I will haunt these States
with beard bald head
eyes staring out plane window
hair hanging out in Greyhound bus midnight
leaning over taxicab seat to admonish
an angry cursing driver
hand lifted to calm
his outraged vehicle
that I pass with the Green Light of common law.

Common sense, Common law, common tenderness
and common tranquility
our means in America to control the money munching
war machine, bright lit industry
everywhere digesting forests & excreting soft pyramids
of newsprint, Redwood and Ponderosa patriarchs
silent in Meditation murdered & regurgitated as smoke,
sawdust, screaming ceilings of Soap Opera,
thick dead Lifes, slick Advertisements
for Gubernatorial big guns
burping Napalm on palm rice tropic greenery.

Dynamite in forests,
boughs fly slow motion
thunder down ravine,
Helicopters roar over National Park, Mekong swamp,
Dynamite fire blasts thru Model Villages,
Violence screams at Police, Mayors get mad over radio,
Drop the Bomb on Niggers!
drop Fire on the gook China
Frankenstein Dragon
waving its tail over Bayonne's domed Aluminium oil reservoir!

I'll haunt these states all year
gazing bleakly out train windows, blue airfield
red TV network on evening plains,
decoding radar Provincial editorial paper message,
deciphering Iron Pipe laborer's curses as
clanging hammers they raise steamshovel claws
over Puerto Rican agony lawyers screams in slums.

 	-- Allen Ginsberg

Watching the images from Iraq on CNN this is the poem I keep coming
back to - not because it's my favourite war poem, but because it
expresses better than anything else this frustrated sense of rage I
feel for the arrogance of America. I love it because it brings out so
beautifully the contradiction, the hypocrisy at the heart of the
American way - the freedom it arrogates to itself and then, drunk on
its power, denies to others; the deliberate placidity of a world where
an angry taxi driver is the most dangerous thing you have to worry
about while the rest of the world burns to ashes to feed your
industries.

Ghost of Ginsberg, it's time.

Aseem Kaul


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From: "Nick Hamilton" <olenick@>

> Guest poem sent in by Aseem Kaul <mithwarg@>

I am not in agreement with the submitter.  He has a right to be stupid,
and I will fight to the death for that right.  But, after all is said,
he (or she) is still stupid.

Nick Hamilton

From: "Patrick  O'Dwyer" <patrickpersonal@>

I am not in agreement with Mr. Hamilton

I do not think that Aseem Kaul is stupid

Nor do I think that Mr. Hamilton is stupid



I think that 41 million people without health insurance

in the worlds richest country is stupid,

I think that the promotion of Libya from the relegation zone

of evil countries after it signed an oil agreement

with Europe and America is stupid

I think that the destruction of Central America through

Dictatorships that were never a threat to Europe or America

was and is stupid

I think that the dismissal of anybody who criticises

America as anti American is stupid

I remember when we laughed at the Soviets

when they called their dissidents anti Soviet

I think that only criticising America and thinking

that Europe is always good is stupid

I think that George Bush and Henry Kissinger

are anti American

I think that Allen Ginsberg is a true American

I think that stupid is an ugly word

But I think that maybe I am the one who is stupid

From: "Dan Pilkington" <pilk00@>

Ginsberg's poem makes me feel bad for the endangered forests of the
earth.  Such a haunting juxtapositioning of nature with the awesome
self-destructiveness of man.

I feel bad for conscripted Iraqi soldiers who had no real choice in the
matter, but feel even worse that the coalition forces couldn't take the
time to protect the  Baghdad Museum (5,000 years of human history) from
looters.

To paraphrase Merwin, "when there are no relics, that will be our relic".

From: "Benjamin A. Okopnik" <ben@>

Hi, Martin -

Aseem Kaul wrote:
> Watching the images from Iraq on CNN this is the poem I keep coming
> back to - not because it's my favourite war poem, but because it
> expresses better than anything else this frustrated sense of rage I
> feel for the arrogance of America. I love it because it brings out so
> beautifully the contradiction, the hypocrisy at the heart of the
> American way - the freedom it arrogates to itself and then, drunk on
> its power, denies to others; the deliberate placidity of a world where
> an angry taxi driver is the most dangerous thing you have to worry
> about while the rest of the world burns to ashes to feed your
> industries.
> 
> Ghost of Ginsberg, it's time.

As opposed to this war as I am, I *REALLY* do not think that
anti-American ranting belongs on this list.  Reading this, in this tense
time, was rather like discovering a drunken imbecile staggering around
with a torch in a powder magazine. I would certainly appreciate it if
you would extinguish his flame.


Regards,
Ben Okopnik
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
For every disciplined effort, there are multiple rewards.
 -- Jim Rohn

From: "Patrick  O'Dwyer" <patrickpersonal@>

We have to watch what we say

So

I devised a rearview speech mirror

And affixed it to my skull

But no one wanted to talk with me

While I watched what I said

In despair I abandoned the act of speech

And devoted myself to a life of ..

{silence}

I am watching what you say too

So far I haven't noticed anything new

--Gwendolyn Albert

From: Acynta@

>I feel bad for conscripted Iraqi soldiers who had no real choice in the
>matter, but feel even worse that the coalition forces couldn't take the
>time to protect the  Baghdad Museum (5,000 years of human history) from
>looters.

This comment reminded me of an old Linda Pastan poem from my fifth grade 
English class.  I make no claims for its greatness, but it has stuck with me 
over the years:

ETHICS 

In ethics class so many years ago 
our teacher asked this question every fall: 
if there were a fire in a museum 
which would you save, a Rembrandt painting 
or an old woman who hadn't many 
year left anyhow?  Restless on hard chairs 
caring little for picture or old age 
we'd opt one year for life, the next for art 
and always half-heartedly.  Sometimes 
the woman borrowed my grandmother's face 
leaving her usual kitchen to wander 
some drafty, half-imagined museum. 
One year, feeling clever, I replied 
why not let the woman decide herself? 
Linda, the teacher would report, eschews 
the burdens of responsibility. 

This fall in a real museum I stand 
before a real Rembrandt, old woman,  
or nearly so, myself.  The colors 
within this frame are darker than autumn, 
darker even than winter--the browns of earth, 
though earth's most radiant elements burn 
through the canvas.  I know now that woman 
and painting and season are almost one 
and all beyond saving by children. 

Having done some work in archaeology myself, I'm consistently moved by what's 
survived millenia.  Painted caskets and door handles and coins dropped on 
roads.  There's rarely any gold left - that's always plundered early on.  
What's always seemed meaningful to me are the bits and pieces - a smashed 
pithos with a metal scoop still inside; a paved floor in an anteroom; the 
things with which humans construct their lives, rather than the things with 
which we adorn them.  Of course art is important, and so is history.  But 
people must always be more important, simply because there is no purpose to a 
painting if there is no one to look at it.

Also I like this poem because it taught me the meaning of the word "eschew", 
which went on to be a particular favorite.

carlynn

From: Aseem_Kaul@

Wow! talk about setting off a powder magazine.

First, a clarification - in my commentary I used the word American (simply
out of convenience, and to go with the poem) to stand for the coalition of
forces in Iraq and all those in the Western world that support them. My
apologies therefore to (IMHO) right-thinking americans who are against the
war. My apologies also to the UK and other countries that support this war
that justly deserve the same criticism and didn't get it!

Second, reading through the comments I'm less concerned by people calling
me stupid (I did say arrogance, remember) and more by those who feel that
this is not the right time to talk about this! I would think this is
precisely the right time to talk about these issues - rather than waiting
another 50 years and then looking them up in some history book as something
no one cares about anymore. Or perhaps Mr Okopnik thinks that poetry isn't
the right forum to talk about 'serious' issues and that we should restrict
ourselves to poems about flowers and hummingbirds. Or believes that if we
all keep very quiet the war will go away and he won't have to be against it
anymore. If that's being 'sensible' than I'd rather be drunk and imbecilic.
And what's more, having read Ginsberg, I don't think he'd have a problem
with burning torches near powder kegs. I think he'd enjoy throwing them in.


Aseem



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From: "M. McCrary" <mccrarytrees@>

i can't stand listening to a bunch of liberals.  i am a conservative and
i like George Bush for the most part.  he is a man of morals and i think
people in this country have lost their conscience.  i support the war
because it is the right thing to do.  The War on terror is a just war
and i support George Bush for taking a stand and protecting the common
people.

Kyle M.

From: "DrSlony" <bitchx@>

If indeed it was a war against terrorism, the aforementioned Dark Lord's
best move towards victory would be suicide.