O does your living make no sound?
The world is large for you to see.
They fly who never touch the ground.
The dream shall pass: it was a dream.
What are the words I have not learned?
I stand before you clean, too clean.
The world has turned before, and turns;
I am unmoved, but fly in dreams.
Around this time, Ginsberg also had what he referred to as his “Blake vision,” an auditory hallucination of William Blake reading his poems “Ah Sunflower,” “The Sick Rose,” and “Little Girl Lost.”
So tell me this one thing,
Old poet, mad saint,
What will it take to make the world strike me with its great magic?
(for Theodore Roethke)
We die of love, or anything at all.
I drew a million breaths, but could not sing.
My bones are of the earth, and heed its call;
I’ll dream a sun, and feed myself on ink.
Be still, be still: a color’s in my eyes.
What’s sleeping? Will I wake? Have I a soul?
This water’s cold. A stone does what it likes.
My breath is gone. The sea’s song fills me whole.
III.
It is a dragon that swallows the moon.
A dragon delivers the rising sun in its jaws.
Knowing nothing of despair or love,
While its heart remains hidden it cannot be killed.
II.
In the time before men the dragons ruled the air,
Spurning the ground,
Fearing nothing, not even the sea.
Evil by their birth,
They were most noble.
I.
The Chinese dragons have faces like old men
Grow stronger the older they grow
Lie by telling the truth
Can ride the slightest wind to invisible heights
Are beautiful in motion, hideous in repose.
Oh, an Octopus is just the thing
When you’re out of string.
Yes, instead of a ball of twine
An Octopus works fine.
Last Christmas Eve I got a box
Done up in Octopus-knots.
It’s nicely tied — there’s even a bow.
But what’s inside? I still don’t know.
The Octopus
won’t
let
go.
The King was rude – nobody ruder –
Until the day he met the Buddha.
“Bow before me!” quoth the King;
The Buddha said, “Await the spring.”
“My word is law,” the King proclaimed.
Said Buddha, “Silence won’t be named.”
The King decreed, “Off with his head!”
And Buddha promptly fell down dead.
But from that day, forever after,
The King can’t sleep for hearing laughter.
Bag of Anything 