[Newspoetry] Ginsberg's America
William Gillespie
wordwork at shout.net
Wed Aug 16 12:56:59 CDT 2000
I think it's Ginsberg not Ginsburg, but one can find lots of web pages
for either poet.
Or both poets on the same webpage.
<http://www.beaconschool.org/~mbenson/allen.html>
How embarrassing. I really need to get a Ph.D. so I can learn the
definitive spellings of things.
As perhaps did Ginsbourg, as evidenced by his poem "Punk Rock Your My
Crybaby"
w w w .
w o r d
w o r k
. o r g
On Wed, 16 Aug 2000, William Gillespie wrote:
> This poem Mike found in the Indy Media Center is a rewrite of "America" by
> Allen Ginsburg, a poem worthy of the newspoetry list:
>
> America I've given you all and now I'm nothing.
> America two dollars and twentyseven cents January 17, 1956.
> I can't stand my own mind
> . America when will we end the human war?
> Go fuck yourself with your atom bomb.
> I don't feel good don't bother me.
> I won't write my poem till I'm in my right mind.
> America when will you be angelic?
> When will you take off your clothes?
> When will you look at yourself through the grave?
> When will you be worthy of your million Trotskyites?
> America why are your libraries full of tears?
> America when will you send your eggs to India?
> I'm sick of your insane demands.
> When can I go into the supermarket and buy what I
> need with my good looks?
> America after all it is you and I who are perfect not
> the next world.
> Your machinery is too much for me.
> You made me want to be a saint.
> There must be some other way to settle this argument.
> Burroughs is in Tangiers I don't think he'll come back
> it's sinister.
> Are you being sinister or is this some form of practical
> joke?
> I'm trying to come to the point.
> I refuse to give up my obsession.
> America stop pushing I know what I'm doing.
> America the plum blossoms are falling.
> I haven't read the newspapers for months, everyday
> somebody goes on trial for murder.
> America I feel sentimental about the Wobblies.
> America I used to be a communist when I was a kid
> I'm not sorry.
> I smoke marijuana every chance I get.
> I sit in my house for days on end and stare at the roses
> in the closet.
> When I go to Chinatown I get drunk and never get laid.
> My mind is made up there's going to be trouble.
> You should have seen me reading Marx.
> My psychoanalyst thinks I'm perfectly right.
> I won't say the Lord's Prayer.
> I have mystical visions and cosmic vibrations.
> America I still haven't told you what you did to Uncle
> Max after he came over from Russia.
> I'm addressing you.
> Are you going to let your emotional life be run by
> Time Magazine?
> I'm obsessed by Time Magazine.
> I read it every week.
> Its cover stares at me every time I slink past the corner
> candystore.
> I read it in the basement of the Berkeley Public Library.
> It's always telling me about responsibility. Business-
> men are serious. Movie producers are serious.
> Everybody's serious but me.
> It occurs to me that I am America.
> I am talking to myself again.
> Asia is rising against me.
> I haven't got a chinaman's chance.
> I'd better consider my national resources.
> My national resources consist of two joints of
> marijuana millions of genitals an unpublishable
> private literature that goes 1400 miles an hour
> and twenty-five-thousand mental institutions.
> I say nothing about my prisons nor the millions of
> underprivileged who live in my flowerpots
> under the light of five hundred suns.
> I have abolished the whorehouses of France, Tangiers
> is the next to go.
> My ambition is to be President despite the fact that
> I'm a Catholic.
> America how can I write a holy litany in your silly
> mood?
> I will continue like Henry Ford my strophes are as
> individual as his automobiles more so they're
> all different sexes.
> America I will sell you strophes $2500 apiece $500
> down on your old strophe
> America free Tom Mooney
> America save the Spanish Loyalists
> America Sacco & Vanzetti must not die
> America I am the Scottsboro boys.
> America when I was seven momma took me to Com-
> munist Cell meetings they sold us garbanzos a
> handful per ticket a ticket costs a nickel and the
> speeches were free everybody was angelic and
> sentimental about the workers it was all so sin-
> cere you have no idea what a good thing the
> party was in 1835 Scott Nearing was a grand
> old man a real mensch Mother Bloor made me
> cry I once saw Israel Amter plain. Everybody
> must have been a spy.
> America you don't really want to go to war.
> America it's them bad Russians.
> Them Russians them Russians and them Chinamen.
> And them Russians.
> The Russia wants to eat us alive. The Russia's power
> mad. She wants to take our cars from out our
> garages.
> Her wants to grab Chicago. Her needs a Red Readers'
> Digest. Her wants our auto plants in Siberia.
> Him big bureaucracy running our fillingsta tions.
> That no good. Ugh. Him make Indians learn read.
> Him need big black niggers. Hah. Her make us
> all work sixteen hours a day. Help.
> America this is quite serious.
> America this is the impression I get from looking in
> the television set.
> America is this correct?
> I'd better get right down to the job.
> It's true I don't want to join the Army or turn lathes
> in precision parts factories, I'm nearsighted and
> psychopathic anyway.
> America I'm putting my queer shoulder to the wheel.
> Allen Ginsberg, Berkeley, January 17, 1956
>
>
>
>
> w w w .
> w o r d
> w o r k
> . o r g
>
> On Tue, 15 Aug 2000, Mike Lehman wrote:
>
> > Looks like Newspoetry to me. There's an e-mail address, so why not ask
> > permission to put it up?
> >
> > >From the LA Indy Media site:
> >
> > My America
> > by Coleman 12:48pm Tue Aug 15 '00
> > p0et2 at home.com
> >
> > A poem to be read in the streets- loudly! Because they just don't want
> > to listen.
> >
> > My America
> > America here is another “queer shoulder against the wheel”
> > America, November 30th 1999 and you still don’t give a fuck about what
> > your poets
> > are saying be they prophet or otherwise.
> > It’s morning...
> > I’m tired and hungry...
> > America your eyes are bloodshot sunrise pink.
> > America you think you’re a situation comedy.
> > I’m not laughing anymore.
> > You have the applause sign illuminated 24 hours a day.
> > America aren’t your hands sore?
> > My hands are sore.
> > You see, I’ve got 2 jobs because you’ll never pay me for being brilliant
> > or sexy.
> > I’ve developed this rash because your driving me crazy.
> > America I’m sure I’m not the only one with this problem.
> > I’ve got an itch to scratch.
> > I sat down with every intention of being angry obssesive paranoid craze
> > brained
> > sinister lunatic and I might as well be up front
> > with it.
> > America are you being paranoid or is it just me?
> > Your paranoia will be your demise.
> > I’m a bit hung over, I’ll try to get to the point.
> > You make me spend good money on legal liquor because you are making good
> > money on illegal marijuana.
> > 4 out of 10 wetsern states agree that marajuana is a good thing.
> > America don’t be so uptight.
> > Stop breathing down my neck already.
> > America when will you abolish the DEA?
> > I’m sick of the DEA.
> > The DEA and ATF.
> > ATF and FBI and CIA.
> > The IRS.
> > Acch! I’m chocking on your acronyms.
> > The USDA would not pay for the black farmers grain.
> > The FDA will not approve life saving drugs.
> > America when will you learn that the alphabet and beurocracy do not mix?
> > These are just casual observations.
> > I’m through with casual observation.
> > I’ll never forgive you for learning the word nigger.
> > I’ll never forgive you for the death of Martin Luther King,
> > And John F. Kennedy and Robert Kennedy and the Chicago police riots and
> > the
> > Rodney King riots and the over 4000 young Americans that died in
> > Southeast Asia.
> > Not to mention state mental hospitals.
> > Not to mention Japanese internment camps.
> > Not to mention slavery.
> > Not to mention Hiroshima.
> > America I grew up with this hisory on my shoulders.
> > My back hurts.
> > Sometimes I just want to go live up in the mountains naked and bearded
> > and forget
> > that Manifest Destiny ever happend.
> > By the way America fuck you on behalf of my native anscestors.
> > I’m only 24 I was a cynic before I was thirteen.
> > You should have seen me reading Henry Miller.
> > I have nothing to be sentimental about.
> > I grew up on joint custody television and spaghetti o’s.
> > Sure I’m bitter but what do you care?
> > America you have forgotten your body.
> > I live amidst it’s womans hips and when drapped in fog your navel is
> > truely a
> > marvelous sight.
> > I’ve found myself driving through your deep moist sex on some secret
> > night on some secret southern road and I roll down the window and gasp
> > for your
> > luscious breath hanging in the pines.
> > You have no idea.
> > America when will you be nudist vegetarian hippie love child?
> > When will you start meditating?
> > When will your politicians be required to read Allen Ginsberg?
> > When will you adopt a multi party system?
> > Yoiur party line votes are to much for me?
> > America a liberal liar is no different than a conservative liar.
> > How do you think Lady Hillary feels?
> > Why do you love your hypocrites?
> > I’m a hypocrite do you love me?
> > I think I’ll run for president, after all I like a good cigar.
> > Lets not forget about blow jobs.
> > America let he who is without sin cast the first stone.
> > I’m tired of your selfishness.
> > What will it take to make you stop wasting your grain?
> > I hope you choke on your nuclear waste.
> > I don’t mean to be harsh.
> > I’m a happy person at heart.
> > America why are your airwaves full of the tracedy of celebrity and the
> > celebrity of
> > tragedy?
> > I never said the pledge of allegiance in school like the good boys and
> > girls, I don’t mind admitting it.
> > I belive in karma I’m not sorry.
> > I remember Ronald Reagan though he can’t remember me.
> > I remember MX missles and mutually assured destruction.
> > I remeber generic food recession Iran Contra Olie North.
> > Oil fires in the gulf smart bombs through open windows.
> > America when will there be a generation that does not know war?
> > Shut up America you talk to much.
> > Jerry Springer- Blah Blah Blah
> > Montell Williams- Blah Blah Blah
> > Oh-po-rah- Blah Blah Blah
> > NPR- Blah Blah Blah
> > CNN- Blah Blah Blah Blah BLah Blah Blaaaaaaaaaaah
> > ‘Merica! I’m tired of your death!
> > Do you insist on getting into the van with Doc Kavorkian?
> > The anarchists are rising against you.
> > I’m afraid ther’s going to be violence.
> > When are you going to stop selling your weapons to suicidal third world
> > nations?
> > When will your millitary industry finally collapse?
> > Don’t come crying to me when the millenium bites you in the ass.
> > I’m not panicking though I occasionally break out in a cold sweat.
> > America I’m doing the best with what I’ve got- Bad eyes bad teeth bi
> > polar dissorderirrational tendancies bi sexual urges.
> > America I really want to make our relationship work.
> > I don’t think it’s time to start seeing other people.
> > I wan’t to be able to say “I LOVE YOU” and mean it.
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > Newspoetry maillist - Newspoetry at ganymede.isdn.uiuc.edu
> > http://ganymede.isdn.uiuc.edu/mailman/listinfo/newspoetry
> >
>
>
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