Friday, January 14, 2011

poems about music: Allen Ginsberg, "Portland Coliseum"

Portland Coliseum
     by Allen Ginsberg

A brown piano in diamond
    white spotlight
Leviathan auditorium
    iron run wired
    hanging organs, vox
        black battery
A single whistling sound of
    ten thousand children's
        larynxes asinging
        pierce the ears
    and following up the belly
        bliss the moment arrived

Apparition, four brown English
    jacket christhair boys
Goofed Ringo battling bright
            white drums
Silent George hair patient
            Soul horse
Short black-skulled Paul
        with the guitar
Lennon the Captain, his mouth
        a triangular smile,
all jump together to End
    some tearful memory song
        ancient-two years,
        The million children
        the thousand words
bounce in their seats, bash
        each other's sides, press
        legs together nervous
Scream again & claphand
        become one Animal
        in the New World Auditorium
        --hands waving myriad
          snakes of thought
        screetch beyond hearing

while a line of police with
        folded arms stands
Sentry to contain the red
        sweatered ecstasy
that rises upward to the
                 wired roof.

                                   -August 27, 1965

No comments:

Post a Comment