Howl

I'm once again remote from the Big Bear Cafe up on the corner of First and R. I can't complain, I'm sitting outside under a umbrella, the sun is shining, life is relatively good.

Today I took a trip to Virginia in search of a Cat Carrier (successful), A copy of Brisinger (successful), a copy of Stephanie Meyers third book in her vampire series (failure) and some groceries to hold me until I go home to mom and dad's en route to Iraq (successful). 

While at Barnes and Noble however, I fell into the same trap I always fall into in book stores. Namely a combination of Awe at the sheer amount of information out there in print, the comforting smell of paper and ink that I know from many a year with a book up to my nose, and the desire to feel that comfort everywhere I go. So yeah, I impulsed shopped. It happens. In this case I bought two moleskein notebooks. With the idea that I will start the long anticipated project of starting to keep track of the stories that the people I see/hear everyday inspire in me. Secondly, and more importantly for this post, I picked up a copy of "Howl and Other Poems" by Allen Ginsburg.

This is the fourth copy of the Pocket Poets Series version of this book. Not that I keep loosing them. Anyone who knows me knows that I treat books like they are my own personal children. The idea of loosing one, quite frankly, scares and enrages me all at the same time. It's sacrilege, much akin to open book burning or abuse. Yes I'm that sort of obsessive. No, I keep lending them to friends who never seem to want to return them, even if I remind them, repeatedly.

Ginsberg was my first run in with how raw, evocative and truly heart retching being gay can be. I don't mean to elevate him to sainthood. I don't think he would appreciate it if I did. But the man was possibly the first who openly wrote about gay sex, and got away with it, mostly scott free. Imagine writing about this topic in the 50's. Especially if you are a little jew boy from New Jersey. Honestly.

But here, you judge a verse and tell me what you think:

"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,"

Can you imagine getting up in a public bookstore to read this. All written in first person. Not doing it for the attention, but doing it to express your vision. This is who he was and part of what he became. It saddens me to no end to know that Mr. Ginsburg passed away in 1997. A short year before I graduated high school, and long long before I started figuring out what the hell I am and where I "belong". I would have loved to have met him and talk to him about what his life was like. I'm sure it was just as crazy, if not more so due to the newness, as our is today. But he was a wealth of experience and proof that *gasp* you can be gay without being a big ol queen. Oh and that your sexuality does not have to be everything that you are, although it should still remain a part of you.

I will leave you with this, my favorite part of "Howl" and a personal vision of how I view the world, and my little piece of hope out of "A Supermarket in California".

"angleheaded hipsters burning for the ancient heavenly connection to the starry dynamo in the machinery of night,"

"I saw you , Walt Whitman, childless, lonely old grubber, poking among the meats in the refrigerator and eyeing the grocery boys. I heard you asking questions of each: Who killed the pork chops? What price bananas? Are you my Angel?"

And now back to my latte and cookie. Happy sunday all.