葡萄.柚

看到一本书上的水彩画，顿时想起了10多年前对于颜色的喜爱。那些颜料与调色板的去处已是寻不着一丝头绪，大概之后形形色色的考试，让我忘了那些深深浅浅的颜色在水与纸间的变幻。但喜欢的终究是喜欢的，视野里有着大把大把的铅笔也算是某种潜意识了？

正在听Ólafur Arnalds的[Found.Songs] 与[...And They Have Escaped The Weight Of Darkness]，香薰的精油是最爱的葡萄柚，觉得好搭啊，都是清清淡淡的、似乎可以看到绿色在纸上晕染到末端的隐约。

把2盒在捷克买的铅笔翻了出来，还有那个可爱的小老鼠笔插，H送来的那盒原木色的也很美。今天开始，我要画。画。~~~~ 我要去买颜料买纸买笔买调色板~~~~说不定哪天我可以跟高高一起开个画展呐，Nice.

立春以来才四五天时间，只觉得整个空气中的味道都不一样了。

上海这雨淅淅沥沥下得感觉有个把月了，但直到这两天才可以忍受打伞走在雨中的湿漉漉，夏天秋天冬天都不行，唯独春雨还是可以忍受一下的。不知为何，总觉得“细雨湿流光”这句话特别适合春天，于是每年春一到，尤其碰上毛毛细雨，这几个字就会不停的在脑子里盘旋。

昨天在读《四气调神大论》，说春天应该晚睡早起，可今天实在是起太早了......凌晨四点爬起，毫无睡意，索性把剩下半本《正见》翻完吧。这书是久仰大名了，却直到最近看了《旅行者与魔法师》才真的被勾起了好奇，就像书本最后一句：愿它带来某些好奇心。

对于佛学的大体认识，过去半年其实已经多少完成了好奇的过程，现在更多的是需要confirmation，于是阅读过程中一个个心结经过上师娓娓解开，的确是令人感动不已。说话的人是如此谦逊又智慧，不盲从、不专断，一页页翻过，真如春风拂面而来，越看越清醒，越看越喜悦。他说的把人本性比作玻璃杯的比喻，细细体会，其间的力量之大真是惊人。尤其喜欢P128页关于自由的表述以及之后的出离心那两段；其实不知为何，早在接触佛学之前，便是这样的思维，于是常常把人吓到，就像上师所说：用世俗的观点去看，证悟者可能看似不正常，因为他们不协商，不被物质利益所诱导或左右，不会感到无聊，不寻刺激，没有面子可丢，不依循礼仪规范，绝不为个人利益而虚假，绝不为博取他人好感而做事，也不为显露而示现他们的专长和能力。------当然我还没有强大到完全如上所述生活，但已经足够不正常到令主流道德人群侧目了。之前，一直用理性跟冷漠来解释，又或者觉得自己的大脑很大程度偏向男性思维方式，总之都是从西方的心理和人格分析理论上找原因（比如说INTP和分裂型人格）。但现在上师告诉我，这根本就是应该的。天啊~~~闻此，何等的心情！

另外最近很明显的一个变化是饮食。虽然之前饮食也较清淡，但起码还是荤素搭配的，但近来一是吃荤的时候会有点恶心的感觉，再就是真的没法杀生了。昨天周末，因为觉得身体有点虚，就去菜场买2条鲫鱼炖汤，结果卖鱼人杀鱼的时候几乎不敢正视，一路走回去的时候也是提心吊胆的莫名心慌，待到厨房冲洗鲫鱼，并且要在鱼身上划几刀时，手竟开始发抖了.......这个想起来似乎有点夸张了，不过下定决心再不碰这些了，昨天就是最后一次吧。

还好春天到了，各种野菜蔬菜都会摆满货架，春天，只吃绿色叶子不杀生，以此为记。

前几天在“康熙”之“康”的博客上无意中瞄到一幅画，便立刻被吸引住了。

猛一看，颇有梵高的腔调，但肯定不是......一部小车车~~~

Tie-dye Sunset Strip

幸亏留了名字，才得以看到这位画家的更多作品。

从互联网上有限的介绍得知：Lisa Sanditz，一个73年的美国女画家，喜欢模仿前人的风格画形形色色的风景画。那么，上面这个可是模仿了一下下梵高呢？

这幅也喜欢：

Staten Island

Noah's Ark on the Missouri River

做一只早起的鸟儿。8点不到，已经吃完早饭开始新的一天，周末如是勤劳的应该不多吧？

阳光清晨。虽然还在夏天的尾巴，太阳毕竟已少了一分杀气，淡淡的竟有种初秋的味道，那是一种小小的喜悦。

最喜欢用巴赫的平均律来配搭这样的早晨，今天更是选了可爱清脆的Gould版本，嗒嗒嗒~~~

一碗玉米糊、一颗煮鸡蛋，恍若回到英国读书的时候，也是这样暖暖的阳光、平均律、简单美味的早餐、满心欢喜的morning~~~

总是解释不清为什么这样子就可以如此欢欣喜悦，有些心情可能必须感同才能身受吧。不懂的人便是不懂，又何必发问，又何必回答。

Let it be......

昨晚重头看《西班牙旅行笔记》，一口气从古罗马时期看到了中世纪。今天继续。

可以与阅读和睦相处的音乐其实不多，需要摒除情感独剩一抹小轻快，不会喧宾夺主，但也不会让人忽略它的存在，无论何时从书本抬头，都可以有一股清甜沁入心脾。巴赫的平均律，于我而言便是这种时分的不二之选。而那首D大调双小提琴，则是解数学题时的最好伴侣。

《笔记》放在沙发上已经很久，却因为错误的阅读方式而被我读得支离破碎，真是暴殄天物了，现今跟着历史的脚步一路狂奔，罗马人、西哥特人、摩尔人，你方唱罢我登场，一口气读下来真是酣畅淋漓。

虽然久仰大名，但还是第一次读林达的书，很喜欢。

关于曾经的岁月，说“那是人类已经足够聪明却不够智慧的年代”，现如今呢？

有时觉得自诩聪明的人往往很蠢，因为他们只是一味的循着当时社会对他们的要求而奋力拼杀，却很少用自己的心想一想这样做的意义何在。

而智慧，不仅中世纪的时候缺乏，今天或许更加稀罕了。

今天兜兜转转突然看到《蓝房子》，一下被它的封面吸引了。刚好昨晚读到了《七十年代》里北岛的那篇，为最后那句“迎向死亡的感觉真美。青春真美”而唏嘘不已，刚好又是李陀作的序。有时候觉得读书的过程就好比一棵树的生长，枝枝蔓蔓不断延伸，那是一个看似纷乱实则有序的过程，让自己的思维不断丰满不断拓展，很有欣喜感。

没法即刻拿到书本，便在网上看了2篇，也是序中提到的艾伦·金斯堡与蓝房子，非常喜欢。特此记一笔，等之后有时间了阅读全书。对于Allen和北岛，之前多多少少是有点点排斥的，也许是因为他们太有名了？莫名而愚蠢的排斥，以至于直到今天才找来那首著名到不行的《嚎叫》，大致搜索了一下中译本，感觉有点失真，还是看原文好了。另外那篇《蓝房子》着实喜欢，氛围、文笔，说不出的感触，转贴一下以备忘，也但愿更多人可以看到这么美好的文章。

北岛《蓝房子》From http://book.ifeng.com/book.php?book_id=1345

蓝房子在斯德哥尔摩附近的一个小岛上，是瑞典诗人托马斯·特朗斯特罗默（TomasTranstr?mer）的别墅。那房子其实又小又旧，得靠不断翻修和油漆才能度过瑞典严酷的冬天。

那年三月底，我到斯德哥尔摩开会。会开得沉闷无聊，这恐怕全世界哪儿都一样。临走前一天，安妮卡（Annika）和我约好去看托马斯。从斯德哥尔摩到托马斯居住的城市维斯特若斯（Vasteras）有两个小时路程，安妮卡开的是瑞典造的红色萨巴（Saab）车。天阴沉沉的，时不时飘下些碎雪。那年春天来得晚，阴郁的森林仍在沉睡，田野以灰蓝色调为主，光秃秃的，随公路起伏。

安妮卡当了十几年外交官，一夜之间变成上帝的使者--牧师。这事对我来说还是有点儿不可思议，好像长跑运动员，突然改行跳伞。安妮卡确实像运动员，高个儿，短发，相当矫健。我一九八一年在北京认识她时，她是瑞典使馆的文化专员。西方，那时还是使馆区戒备森严的铁栏杆后面一个相当抽象的概念。我每次和安妮卡见面，先打电话约好，等她开车把我运进去。经过岗楼，我像口袋面往下出溜。

一九八三年夏末。一天中午，我跟安妮卡去西单绒线胡同的四川饭店吃饭。下车时，她给我一包东西，说是托马斯最新的诗集《野蛮的广场》，包括马悦然（C?ranMalmqvist）的英译稿和一封信。马悦然在信中问我能不能把托马斯的诗译成中文，这还是我头一回听到托马斯的名字。

回家查字典译了九首，果然厉害。托马斯的意象诡异而辉煌，其音调是独一无二的。很幸运，我是他的第一个中译者，相比之下，我们当时处于一个很低的起点。

一九八五年春天，托马斯到北京访问。我到鼓楼后边的竹园宾馆接他。那原是康生的家，大得让人咋舌。坐进出租车，我们都有点儿尴尬。我那时英文拉不开栓，连比划带迸单词都没用，索性闭嘴。最初的路线我记得很清楚：穿过鼓楼大街，经北海后门奔平安里，再拐到西四，沿着复外大街向西……目的地是哪儿来着？现在怎么也想不起来了，于是那辆丰田出租车开进虚无中。只记得我紧张地盯着计价表上跳动的数字：兜里钱有限。

没过两天，我又陪托马斯去长城。那天作家协会出车，同行的还有《人民画报》社瑞典文组的李之义。他把作协的翻译小姐支走，小姐也乐得去买买衣服。李之义是我哥们，没的说，除了不得不对司机保持必要的防范。那年头，我们跟托马斯享受了社会主义的优越性：坐专车赏景，还在长城脚下的外国专家餐厅蹭了顿免费的午餐。

那天托马斯很高兴，面色红润，阳光在他深深的皱纹中转动。他触摸那些城垛上某某到此一游的刻字，对人们如此强烈的要被记住的愿望感到惊讶。我请他转过头来，揿动快门。在那一瞬间，他双手交叉，笑了，风掀起他开始褪色的金发。这张照片后来上了一本书的扉页。那书收入托马斯诗歌的各种译文，包括我译的那几首。

快到维斯特若斯，安妮卡用"大哥大"和托马斯的妻子莫妮卡（Monika）联系，确认高速公路的出口和路线。托马斯住在一片灰秃秃的没有性格的排房里--我紧跟攥着门牌号码的安妮卡东奔西突，在现代化的迷宫寻找托马斯。

他出现在门口，扔下拐棍，紧紧搂住我。那一瞬间，我真怕我会大哭起来。莫妮卡说："托马斯正要出去散步……看看我们的托马斯，要不是这两天感冒，简直像个明星……"待坐定，我才能真正看到他。他的头发全白了，但气色很好，眼睛恢复了中风前的镇定。

一九九○年十二月，我得到托马斯中风的消息，马上给莫妮卡打电话。她哭了，"托马斯是个好人……他不会说话了……我能做什么？"莫妮卡是护士，托马斯中风后她辞了职。一九九一年夏天我来看望他们，托马斯显得惊慌而迷惘。他后来在诗中描述了那种内在的黑暗：他像个被麻袋罩住的孩子，隔着网眼观看外部世界。他右半身瘫痪，语言系统完全乱了套，咿咿呀呀，除了莫妮卡，谁也听不懂。只见莫妮卡贴近托马斯，和他的眼睛对视，解读他的内心。她也常常会猜错，托马斯就用手势帮助她。比如把时间猜成五年，手指向右增加，向左减少，微妙有如调琴。"心有灵犀一点通"，这在托马斯和莫妮卡的现实中是真的，他们跨越了语言障碍。

如今托马斯能说几句简单的瑞典话，常挂在嘴边的是"很好"。托马斯，喝咖啡吗？很好。去散散步吧？很好。要不要弹钢琴？很好。这说明他对与莫妮卡共同拥有的现实的满意程度。我给托马斯带来一套激光唱盘，是格林·高尔德（ClennGould）演奏的巴赫第一、第五和第七钢琴协奏曲，他乐得像个孩子，一个劲儿向莫妮卡使眼色。在我的请求下，他用左手弹了几支曲子，相当专业。弹完他挥挥手，抱怨为左手写的谱子太少了--如今莫妮卡"翻译"得准确无误。

女人们去厨房忙碌，我和托马斯陷入头一次见面的尴尬中。我说了点儿什么，全都是废话。我剥掉激光唱盘上的玻璃纸，把唱盘交给托马斯。放唱盘的自动开关坏了，用一根黑线拴着，托马斯熟练地把唱盘放进去。在高尔德演奏第一协奏曲的前几秒钟，他突然大声哼出那激动人心的第一乐句，吓了我一跳。他两眼放光，让位给伟大的钢琴家和乐队，自己摸索着坐下。音乐给我们沉默的借口。

茶几上，那团成一团的玻璃纸，像朵透明的花慢慢开放。 （也许因为背景在瑞典的缘故，读到这里很有Bergman电影的感觉，一个被定格的画面）

蓝房子里挂着一幅多桅帆船的油画，是托马斯的祖父画的。这房子至少有一百五十年历史了。由于保暖需要，天花板很低，窗户小小的。沿着吱吱作响的楼梯上楼，一间是卧室，一间是托马斯的小书房，窗外就是树林。托马斯的很多意象与蓝房子有关。

我头一回见到蓝房子是一九八五年夏天，即我陪托马斯游长城的半年以后。那时我像只没头苍蝇，在玻璃上撞了好几个月，终于有只手挥了挥，把我放了出去。

托马斯笑呵呵地在蓝房子外迎接我。在场的除了马悦然和夫人宁祖、还有他们的学生碧达（Britta）和安妮卡。安妮卡来晚了，她刚从北京调回瑞典外交部。如果时光是部影片的话，我非把它倒回去，让那个时刻放得慢一点儿，或索性定格。那时托马斯爱开玩笑，壮得像牛；宁祖活得好好的，大笑个没完；安妮卡年轻得像个大学生，精力过人，好像直接从北京游过来似的。

瑞典的夏天好像钟停摆--阳光无限。坐在蓝房子外面，我们一边喝啤酒，一边尝莫妮卡做的小菜，话题散漫。瑞典文和中文近似，有两个声调。两种语言起伏应和，好像二重唱。那年蚊子特别多，逆光下呈雾状，挥之不去，让人心顶意乱。而托马斯坐在蚊子中间若无其事。蚊子不咬他，他也不驱赶，似乎达成了一个秘密的和平协议。

托马斯给我看了他刚刚完成的诗作《上海》（题目后来改成《上海的街》）。开头两句是："公园的白蝴蝶被很多人读着。／我爱这菜白色，像是真理扑动的一角。"这意象来自他上海的经历。从北京到上海，没人陪同，使馆要他把所有发票都保存好。发票多半是中文的，他正着看倒着看都没用。那上海闲人多，估摸这奇怪的动作招来看热闹的，于是发票变成了白蝴蝶，被很多人读着。

托马斯是心理学家，在少年犯罪管教所工作。依我看，这职业和诗歌的关系最近，诗歌难道不像个少年犯吗？在二十三岁那年，托马斯靠他的第一本诗集《诗十七首》把瑞典文坛给镇了。即使现在看，那些诗也近于完美。他写得很慢，一辈子只有一百多首诗，结成全集也不过一本小书而已，但几乎首首都好。那是奇迹。

我们又回到一九九八年，在晚饭前喝着西班牙开胃酒。我问起托马斯的写作。他从抽屉里找出两个八开的横格本。一九九○年十二月是个分水岭，以前的字迹清晰工整，中风后改左手写字，像是地震后的结果，凌乱不堪。一个美国诗人告诉我，当年托马斯来美国访问，人一走，有人把模仿他诗句的纸条塞进他住过的房间，再找出来，宣称是伟大的发现。他们要能看到这原稿，还了得？

二十世纪六七十年代，不合时代潮流的托马斯受到同行们恶狠狠的攻击，骂他是"出口诗人"，"保守派"，"资产阶级"。记得有一次我问他生不生气。"我倒想说不，可我能不生气吗？"如今时代转过身来，向托马斯致敬。他接连得到许多重要的文学奖。莫妮卡告诉我，前不久，他俩去斯德哥尔摩美术馆，被一个导游认了出来，他大声向观众们说："这是我们的托马斯！"全体向他们鼓掌。

一九九○年初，我漂泊到瑞典，在斯德哥尔摩一住就是八个月。八五年那个令人眩晕的夏天一去不返。我整天拉着窗帘，跟自己过不去。若没有瑞典朋友，我八成早疯了。

那年我常和托马斯见面。

一张托马斯在花丛里的照片上标明：一九九○年八月四日。那天早上，我和李笠乘轮船直奔蓝房子，结果坐过了站，被抛在另一个岛上，下一班船要等好几个钟头。李笠说服了一个住在岛上的老头，用汽艇把我们送过去，老头说什么也不肯收钱。

那天布罗茨基也在。他一九七二年离开俄国，再也没回去过。几乎每年夏天，他都到斯德哥尔摩住一阵，据说是因为这儿的环境气候最像他的老家彼得堡。我头一眼就不喜欢他，受不了他那自以为是的劲头。此后又见过面，都改变不了这第一印象。布罗茨基对托马斯倒是很恭敬。他曾老老实实承认，他的某些意象是从托马斯那儿"偷"来的。

我们坐在阳光下喝啤酒，懒洋洋的。大家倚在蓝房子的扶手台阶上，用Polar-oid照相机轮流拍照。他们的小女儿玛利亚（Maria）帮忙收拾杯盘，她长得很像莫妮卡。他们有两个女儿，都住在斯德哥尔摩。

李笠、布罗茨基和玛利亚赶傍晚的一班船回斯德哥尔摩，我留下来，住在蓝房子旁边的一栋小木屋里。那夜，我失眠了。树林里的猫头鹰整夜哀号。

算起来，从那时到托马斯中风只剩下四个月。只有托马斯自己，在一九七四年发表的唯一一首长诗《波罗的海》预言了这场灾难。八月初，我从瑞典搬到丹麦，临走前跟托马斯夫妇来往最频繁。他们一到斯德哥尔摩，马上打电话过来。和中国人在一起，饭局是少不了的，几杯酒下肚，托马斯总是半开玩笑地对我说："我从没见过像你这么高的中国人。"

十一月初，我在丹麦奥胡斯（Aarhus）刚落脚，托马斯就跟过来朗诵。我像傻子一样，坐在听众中间。现在想起来，那是天赐良机，在托马斯即将丧失语言能力以前。他嗓子有点儿沙哑，平缓的声调中有一种嘲讽，但十分隐蔽，不易察觉。他注重词与词的距离，好像行走在溪流中的一块块石头上。朗诵完了，听众开始提问。有个秃顶男人和托马斯争了起来。我还是像傻子一样，头在瑞典语和丹麦语之间扭来扭去。我从来没见过托马斯这么激动过，他脸红了，嗓门也高了。

朗诵会后，主持人请我们一起吃晚饭。问起刚才的争论，托马斯只说了一句："那家伙自以为有学问。"我想为一起来听朗诵的同事安娜讨本诗集，他把手伸进书包，孩子似的做了个鬼脸--没了。没了？我有点儿怀疑。没了！他肯定地说。

一个月后，他拒绝再和任何人争论。听到他中风的消息，我很难过，写了首诗给他，听莫妮卡说他看完掉了眼泪。

你把一首诗的最后一句
锁在心里--那是你的重心
随钟声摆动的教堂的重心
和无头的天使跳舞时
你保持住了平衡……

一晃七八年过去了，托马斯真的保持住了平衡。

我第二天一早飞回美国，得早点儿动身回斯德哥尔摩。晚饭吃得早，有鱼子酱、沙拉和烤鱼，餐桌上点着蜡烛，刀叉闪闪。烛光中，托马斯眼睛明亮。莫妮卡时不时握握他的手，询问般地望着他。饭后，我们回到客厅，打开电视，正好是晚间新闻。政客们一个个迎向镜头，喋喋不休。莫妮卡和安妮卡笑起来，而托马斯表情严肃，紧盯着电视。一会儿，莫妮卡关上电视，端出她烤的苹果馅饼。我们正有说有笑，托马斯又用遥控器把电视打开。莫妮卡告诉我，托马斯觉得有责任监督那些愚蠢的政客。

一九九〇年夏天，我的确在蓝房子过夜时失眠，莫妮卡证实了这一点。那么第二天早上干什么来着？对了，我跟托马斯去采蘑菇。我们穿上长筒胶靴，笨拙得像登月的宇航员。走着走着下起雨来，林中小路更加泥泞。托马斯走在前头，用小刀剜起蘑菇，搁嘴里尝尝，好的塞进口袋，坏的连忙吐掉，说，"有毒。"

HOWL
by Allen Ginsberg

I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by
madness, starving hysterical naked,
dragging themselves through the negro streets at dawn
looking for an angry fix,
angelheaded hipsters burning for the ancient heavenly
connection to the starry dynamo in the machinery of night,
who poverty and tatters and hollow-eyed and high sat
up smoking in the supernatural darkness of
cold-water flats floating across the tops of cities
contemplating jazz,
who bared their brains to Heaven under the El and
saw Mohammedan angels staggering on tenement roofs illuminated,
who passed through universities with radiant cool eyes
hallucinating Arkansas and Blake-light tragedy
among the scholars of war,
who were expelled from the academies for crazy &
publishing obscene odes on the windows of the skull,
who cowered in unshaven rooms in underwear,
burning their money in wastebaskets and listening
to the Terror through the wall,
who got busted in their pubic beards returning through
Laredo with a belt of marijuana for New York,
who ate fire in paint hotels or drank turpentine in
Paradise Alley, death, or purgatoried their
torsos night after night
with dreams, with drugs, with waking nightmares,
alcohol and cock and endless balls,
incomparable blind; streets of shuddering cloud and
lightning in the mind leaping toward poles of Canada & Paterson,
illuminating all the motionless world of Time between,
Peyote solidities of halls, backyard green tree cemetery
dawns, wine drunkenness over the rooftops,
storefront boroughs of teahead joyride neon
blinking traffic light, sun and moon and tree
vibrations in the roaring winter dusks of Brooklyn,
ashcan rantings and kind king light of mind,
who chained themselves to subways for the endless
ride from Battery to holy Bronx on benzedrine
until the noise of wheels and children brought
them down shuddering mouth-wracked and
battered bleak of brain all drained of brilliance
in the drear light of Zoo,
who sank all night in submarine light of Bickford's
floated out and sat through the stale beer after
noon in desolate Fugazzi's, listening to the crack
of doom on the hydrogen jukebox,
who talked continuously seventy hours from park to
pad to bar to Bellevue to museum to the Brooklyn Bridge,
lost battalion of platonic conversationalists jumping
down the stoops off fire escapes off windowsills
off Empire State out of the moon,
yacketayakking screaming vomiting whispering facts
and memories and anecdotes and eyeball kicks
and shocks of hospitals and jails and wars,
whole intellects disgorged in total recall for seven days
and nights with brilliant eyes, meat for the
Synagogue cast on the pavement,
who vanished into nowhere Zen New Jersey leaving a
trail of ambiguous picture postcards of Atlantic City Hall,
suffering Eastern sweats and Tangerian bone-grind-ings and
migraines of China under junk-with-drawal in Newark's bleak furnished room,
who wandered around and around at midnight in the
railroad yard wondering where to go, and went,
leaving no broken hearts,
who lit cigarettes in boxcars boxcars boxcars racketing
through snow toward lonesome farms in grand-father night,
who studied Plotinus Poe St. John of the Cross telepathy
and bop kabbalah because the cosmos instinctively
vibrated at their feet in Kansas,
who loned it through the streets of Idaho seeking visionary
indian angels who were visionary indian angels,
who thought they were only mad when Baltimore
gleamed in supernatural ecstasy,
who jumped in limousines with the Chinaman of Oklahoma on the impulse of winter midnight street
light smalltown rain,
who lounged hungry and lonesome through Houston
seeking jazz or sex or soup, and followed the
brilliant Spaniard to converse about America
and Eternity, a hopeless task, and so took ship to Africa,
who disappeared into the volcanoes of Mexico leaving
behind nothing but the shadow of dungarees
and the lava and ash of poetry scattered in fireplace Chicago,
who reappeared on the West Coast investigating the
F.B.I. in beards and shorts with big pacifist
eyes sexy in their dark skin passing out incomprehensible leaflets,
who burned cigarette holes in their arms protesting
the narcotic tobacco haze of Capitalism,
who distributed Supercommunist pamphlets in Union
Square weeping and undressing while the sirens
of Los Alamos wailed them down, and wailed
down Wall, and the Staten Island ferry also wailed,
who broke down crying in white gymnasiums naked
and trembling before the machinery of other skeletons,
who bit detectives in the neck and shrieked with delight
in policecars for committing no crime but their
own wild cooking pederasty and intoxication,
who howled on their knees in the subway and were
dragged off the roof waving genitals and manuscripts,
who let themselves be fucked in the ass by saintly
motorcyclists, and screamed with joy,
who blew and were blown by those human seraphim,
the sailors, caresses of Atlantic and Caribbean love,
who balled in the morning in the evenings in rose
gardens and the grass of public parks and
cemeteries scattering their semen freely to
whomever come who may,
who hiccuped endlessly trying to giggle but wound up
with a sob behind a partition in a Turkish Bath
when the blond & naked angel came to pierce
them with a sword,
who lost their loveboys to the three old shrews of fate
the one eyed shrew of the heterosexual dollar
the one eyed shrew that winks out of the womb
and the one eyed shrew that does nothing but
sit on her ass and snip the intellectual golden
threads of the craftsman's loom,
who copulated ecstatic and insatiate with a bottle of
beer a sweetheart a package of cigarettes a candle and fell off the bed, and continued along
the floor and down the hall and ended fainting
on the wall with a vision of ultimate cunt and
come eluding the last gyzym of consciousness,
who sweetened the snatches of a million girls trembling
in the sunset, and were red eyed in the morning
but prepared to sweeten the snatch of the sun
rise, flashing buttocks under barns and naked in the lake,
who went out whoring through Colorado in myriad
stolen night-cars, N.C., secret hero of these
poems, cocksman and Adonis of Denver-joy
to the memory of his innumerable lays of girls
in empty lots & diner backyards, moviehouses'
 rickety rows, on mountaintops in caves or with
gaunt waitresses in familiar roadside lonely petticoat upliftings & especially secret gas-station
solipsisms of johns, & hometown alleys too,
who faded out in vast sordid movies, were shifted in
dreams, woke on a sudden Manhattan, and
picked themselves up out of basements hung
over with heartless Tokay and horrors of Third
Avenue iron dreams & stumbled to unemployment offices,
who walked all night with their shoes full of blood on
the snowbank docks waiting for a door in the
East River to open to a room full of steamheat and opium,
who created great suicidal dramas on the apartment
cliff-banks of the Hudson under the wartime
blue floodlight of the moon & their heads shall
be crowned with laurel in oblivion,
who ate the lamb stew of the imagination or digested
the crab at the muddy bottom of the rivers of Bowery,
who wept at the romance of the streets with their
pushcarts full of onions and bad music,
who sat in boxes breathing in the darkness under the
bridge, and rose up to build harpsichords in their lofts,
who coughed on the sixth floor of Harlem crowned
with flame under the tubercular sky surrounded
by orange crates of theology,
who scribbled all night rocking and rolling over lofty
incantations which in the yellow morning were
stanzas of gibberish,
who cooked rotten animals lung heart feet tail borsht
& tortillas dreaming of the pure vegetable kingdom,
who plunged themselves under meat trucks looking for an egg,
who threw their watches off the roof to cast their ballot
for Eternity outside of Time, & alarm clocks
fell on their heads every day for the next decade,
who cut their wrists three times successively unsuccessfully, gave up and were forced to open antique
stores where they thought they were growing
old and cried,
who were burned alive in their innocent flannel suits
on Madison Avenue amid blasts of leaden verse
& the tanked-up clatter of the iron regiments
of fashion & the nitroglycerine shrieks of the
fairies of advertising & the mustard gas of sinister intelligent editors, or were run down by the
drunken taxicabs of Absolute Reality,
who jumped off the Brooklyn Bridge this actually happened and walked away unknown and forgotten
into the ghostly daze of Chinatown soup alley
ways & firetrucks, not even one free beer,
who sang out of their windows in despair, fell out of
the subway window, jumped in the filthy Passaic, leaped on negroes,
cried all over the street,
danced on broken wineglasses barefoot smashed
phonograph records of nostalgic European
1930s German jazz finished the whiskey and
threw up groaning into the bloody toilet, moans
in their ears and the blast of colossal steam whistles,
who barreled down the highways of the past journeying
to each other's hotrod-Golgotha jail-solitude
watch or Birmingham jazz incarnation,
who drove crosscountry seventytwo hours to find out
if I had a vision or you had a vision or he had
a vision to find out Eternity,
who journeyed to Denver, who died in Denver, who
came back to Denver & waited in vain, who
watched over Denver & brooded & loned in
Denver and finally went away to find out the
Time, & now Denver is lonesome for her heroes,
who fell on their knees in hopeless cathedrals praying
for each other's salvation and light and breasts,
until the soul illuminated its hair for a second,
who crashed through their minds in jail waiting for
impossible criminals with golden heads and the
charm of reality in their hearts who sang sweet
blues to Alcatraz,
who retired to Mexico to cultivate a habit, or Rocky
Mount to tender Buddha or Tangiers to boys
or Southern Pacific to the black locomotive or
Harvard to Narcissus to Woodlawn to the
daisychain or grave,
who demanded sanity trials accusing the radio of hyp
notism & were left with their insanity & their
hands & a hung jury,
who threw potato salad at CCNY lecturers on Dadaism
and subsequently presented themselves on the
granite steps of the madhouse with shaven heads
and harlequin speech of suicide, demanding instantaneous lobotomy,
and who were given instead the concrete void of insulin
Metrazol electricity hydrotherapy psychotherapy occupational
therapy pingpong & amnesia,
who in humorless protest overturned only one symbolic
pingpong table, resting briefly in catatonia,
returning years later truly bald except for a wig of
blood, and tears and fingers, to the visible mad
man doom of the wards of the madtowns of the East,
Pilgrim State's Rockland's and Greystone's foetid
halls, bickering with the echoes of the soul,
rocking and rolling in the midnight solitude-bench
dolmen-realms of love, dream of life a nightmare,
bodies turned to stone as heavy as the moon,
with mother finally ******, and the last fantastic book
flung out of the tenement window, and the last
door closed at 4. A.M. and the last telephone
slammed at the wall in reply and the last furnished room
emptied down to the last piece of mental furniture,
a yellow paper rose twisted on a wire hanger in the closet,
and even that imaginary,
nothing but a hopeful little bit of hallucination
ah, Carl, while you are not safe I am not safe, and
now you're really in the total animal soup of time
and who therefore ran through the icy streets obsessed
with a sudden flash of the alchemy of the use
of the ellipse the catalog the meter & the vibrating plane,
who dreamt and made incarnate gaps in Time & Space
through images juxtaposed, and trapped the
archangel of the soul between 2 visual images
and joined the elemental verbs and set the noun
and dash of consciousness together jumping
with sensation of Pater Omnipotens Aeterna Deus
to recreate the syntax and measure of poor human
prose and stand before you speechless and intelligent
and shaking with shame,
rejected yet confessing out the soul to conform to the rhythm
of thought in his naked and endless head,
the madman bum and angel beat in Time, unknown,
yet putting down here what might be left to say
in time come after death,
and rose reincarnate in the ghostly clothes of jazz in
the goldhorn shadow of the band and blew the
suffering of America's naked mind for love into
an eli eli lamma lamma sabacthani saxophone
cry that shivered the cities down to the last radio
with the absolute heart of the poem of life butchered
out of their own bodies good to eat a thousand years.
What sphinx of cement and aluminum bashed open
their skulls and ate up their brains and imagination?
Moloch! Solitude! Filth! Ugliness! Ashcans and unob
tainable dollars! Children screaming under the
stairways! Boys sobbing in armies! Old men
weeping in the parks!
Moloch! Moloch! Nightmare of Moloch! Moloch the
loveless! Mental Moloch! Moloch the heavy
judger of men!
Moloch the incomprehensible prison! Moloch the
crossbone soulless jailhouse and Congress of
sorrows! Moloch whose buildings are judgment!
Moloch the vast stone of war! Moloch the stunned governments!
Moloch whose mind is pure machinery! Moloch whose
blood is running money! Moloch whose fingers
are ten armies! Moloch whose breast is a cannibal dynamo!
Moloch whose ear is a smoking tomb!
Moloch whose eyes are a thousand blind windows!
Moloch whose skyscrapers stand in the long
streets like endless Jehovahs! Moloch whose factories
dream and croak in the fog! Moloch whose
smokestacks and antennae crown the cities!
Moloch whose love is endless oil and stone! Moloch
whose soul is electricity and banks! Moloch
whose poverty is the specter of genius! Moloch
whose fate is a cloud of sexless hydrogen!
Moloch whose name is the Mind!
Moloch in whom I sit lonely! Moloch in whom I dream
Angels! Crazy in Moloch! Cocksucker in
Moloch! Lacklove and manless in Moloch!
Moloch who entered my soul early! Moloch in whom
I am a consciousness without a body! Moloch
who frightened me out of my natural ecstasy!
Moloch whom I abandon! Wake up in Moloch!
Light streaming out of the sky!
Moloch! Moloch! Robot apartments! invisible suburbs!
skeleton treasuries! blind capitals! demonic
industries! spectral nations! invincible mad
houses! granite cocks! monstrous bombs!
They broke their backs lifting Moloch to Heaven! Pave-
ments, trees, radios, tons! lifting the city to
Heaven which exists and is everywhere about us!
Visions! omens! hallucinations! miracles! ecstasies!
gone down the American river!
Dreams! adorations! illuminations! religions! the whole
boatload of sensitive bullshit!
Breakthroughs! over the river! flips and crucifixions!
gone down the flood! Highs! Epiphanies! Despairs!
Ten years' animal screams and suicides!
Minds! New loves! Mad generation! down on
the rocks of Time!
Real holy laughter in the river! They saw it all! the
wild eyes! the holy yells! They bade farewell!
They jumped off the roof! to solitude! waving!
carrying flowers! Down to the river! into the street!
Carl Solomon! I'm with you in Rockland
where you're madder than I am
I'm with you in Rockland
where you must feel very strange
I'm with you in Rockland
where you imitate the shade of my mother
I'm with you in Rockland
where you've murdered your twelve secretaries
I'm with you in Rockland
where you laugh at this invisible humor
I'm with you in Rockland
where we are great writers on the same dreadful typewriter
I'm with you in Rockland
where your condition has become serious and
is reported on the radio
I'm with you in Rockland
where the faculties of the skull no longer admit
the worms of the senses
I'm with you in Rockland
where you drink the tea of the breasts of the
spinsters of Utica
I'm with you in Rockland
where you pun on the bodies of your nurses the
harpies of the Bronx
I'm with you in Rockland
where you scream in a straightjacket that you're
losing the game of the actual pingpong of the abyss
I'm with you in Rockland
where you bang on the catatonic piano the soul
is innocent and immortal it should never die
ungodly in an armed madhouse
I'm with you in Rockland
where fifty more shocks will never return your
soul to its body again from its pilgrimage to a
cross in the void
I'm with you in Rockland
where you accuse your doctors of insanity and
plot the Hebrew socialist revolution against the
fascist national Golgotha
I'm with you in Rockland
where you will split the heavens of Long Island
and resurrect your living human Jesus from the
superhuman tomb
I'm with you in Rockland
where there are twenty-five-thousand mad com-
rades all together singing the final stanzas of
the Internationale
I'm with you in Rockland
where we hug and kiss the United States under
our bedsheets the United States that coughs all
night and won't let us sleep
I'm with you in Rockland
where we wake up electrified out of the coma
by our own souls' airplanes roaring over the
roof they've come to drop angelic bombs the
hospital illuminates itself imaginary walls collapse
O skinny legions run outside O starry
spangled shock of mercy the eternal war is
here O victory forget your underwear we're free
I'm with you in Rockland
in my dreams you walk dripping from a sea-
journey on the highway across America in tears
to the door of my cottage in the Western night