ALLEN

GINSBERG

COLLECTED

POEMS

1947–1997

Collected Poems 1947–1997 is a compilation of the texts of

Collected Poems 1947–1980, White Shroud: Poems 1980–1985,

Cosmopolitan Greetings: Poems 1986–1992, and

Death & Fame: Poems 1993–1997.

The Estate would like to express gratitude to Eliot Katz for his dedication and assistance in preparation of this manuscript, Danny Mulligan at HarperCollins for attentive coordinating, and Jeffrey Posternak at the Wylie Agency for his tireless intermediation.

Contents

COLLECTED POEMS 1947–1980

Author’s Preface, Reader’s Manual

I. EMPTY MIRROR: GATES OF WRATH (1947–1952)

In Society

The Bricklayer’s Lunch Hour

Two Sonnets

On Reading William Blake’s “The Sick Rose”

The Eye Altering Alters All

A Very Dove

Vision 1948

Do We Understand Each Other?

The Voice of Rock

Refrain

A Western Ballad

The Trembling of the Veil

A Meaningless Institution

A Mad Gleam

Complaint of the Skeleton to Time

Psalm I

An Eastern Ballad

Sweet Levinsky

Psalm II

Fie My Fum

Pull My Daisy

The Shrouded Stranger

Stanzas: Written at Night in Radio City

After All, What Else Is There to Say?

Sometime Jailhouse Blues

Please Open the Window and Let Me In

“Tonite all is well”

Fyodor

Epigram on a Painting of Golgotha

“I attempted to concentrate”

Metaphysics

In Death, Cannot Reach What Is Most Near

This Is About Death

Hymn

Sunset

Ode to the Setting Sun

Paterson

Bop Lyrics

A Dream

Long Live the Spiderweb

The Shrouded Stranger

An Imaginary Rose in a Book

Crash

The Terms in Which I Think of Reality

The Night-Apple

Cezanne’s Ports

The Blue Angel

Two Boys Went Into a Dream Diner

A Desolation

In Memoriam: William Cannastra, 1922–1950

Ode: My 24th Year

How Come He Got Canned at the Ribbon Factory

The Archetype Poem

A Typical Affair

A Poem on America

After Dead Souls

Marijuana Notation

Gregory Corso’s Story

I Have Increased Power

Walking home at night

“I learned a world from each”

“I made love to myself”

A Ghost May Come

“I feel as if I am at a dead end”

An Atypical Affair

345 W. 15th St.

A Crazy Spiritual

Wild Orphan

II. THE GREEN AUTOMOBILE (1953–1954)

The Green Automobile

An Asphodel

My Alba

Sakyamuni Coming Out from the Mountain

Havana 1953

Green Valentine Blues

Siesta in Xbalba

Song (“The weight of the world”)

In back of the real

On Burroughs’ Work

Love Poem on Theme by Whitman

Over Kansas

III. HOWL, BEFORE & AFTER: SAN FRANCISCO BAY AREA (1955–1956)

Malest Cornifici Tuo Catullo

Dream Record: June 8, 1955

“Blessed be the Muses”

Howl

Footnote to Howl

A Strange New Cottage in Berkeley

A Supermarket in California

Four Haiku

Sunflower Sutra

Transcription of Organ Music

Sather Gate Illumination

America

Fragment 1956

Afternoon Seattle

Tears

Scribble

In the Baggage Room at Greyhound

Psalm III

Many Loves

Ready to Roll

IV. REALITY SANDWICHES: EUROPE! EUROPE: (1957–1959)

POEM Rocket

Squeal

Wrote This Last Night

Death to Van Gogh’s Ear!

Europe! Europe!

The Lion for Real

The Names

At Apollinaire’s Grave

Message

To Lindsay

To Aunt Rose

American Change

‘Back on Times Square, Dreaming of Times Square’

Laughing Gas

Funny Death

My Sad Self

Ignu

Battleship Newsreel

V. KADDISH AND RELATED POEMS (1959–1960)

Kaddish: Proem, Narrative, Hymmnn, Lament, Litany and Fugue

Mescaline

Lysergic Acid

I Beg You Come Back & Be Cheerful

Psalm IV

To an Old Poet in Peru

Aether

Magic Psalm

The Reply

The End

Man’s glory

Fragment: The Names II

VI. PLANET NEWS: TO EUROPE AND ASIA (1961–1963)

Who Will Take Over the Universe

Journal Night Thoughts

Television Was a Baby Crawling Toward That Deathchamber

This Form of Life Needs Sex

Sunset S.S. Azemour

Seabattle of Salamis Took Place off Perama

Galilee Shore

Stotras to Kali Destroyer of Illusions

To P.O.

Heat

Describe: The Rain on Dasaswamedh Ghat

Death News

Vulture Peak: Gridhakuta Hill

Patna-Benares Express

Last Night in Calcutta

Understand That This Is a Dream

Angkor Wat

The Change: Kyoto-Tokyo Express

VII. KING OF MAY: AMERICA TO EUROPE (1963–1965)

Nov. 23, 1963: Alone

Why Is God Love, Jack?

Morning

Waking in New York

After Yeats

I Am a Victim of Telephone

Today

Message II

Big Beat

Cafe in Warsaw

The Moments Return

Kral Majales

Guru

Drowse Murmurs

Who Be Kind To

Studying the Signs

Portland Coliseum

VIII. THE FALL OF AMERICA (1965–1971)

Thru the Vortex West Coast to East (1965–1966)

Beginning of a Poem of These States

Carmel Valley

First Party at Ken Kesey’s with Hell’s Angels

Continuation of a Long Poem of These States

These States: into L.A.

A Methedrine Vision in Hollywood

Hiway Poesy: L.A.-Albuquerque-Texas-Wichita

Chances “R”

Wichita Vortex Sutra

Auto Poesy: On the Lam from Bloomington

Kansas City to Saint Louis

Bayonne Entering NYC

Growing Old Again

Uptown

The Old Village Before I Die

Consulting I Ching Smoking Pot Listening to the Fugs Sing Blake

Zigzag Back Thru These States (1966—1967)

        Wings Lifted over the Black Pit

Cleveland, the Flats

To the Body

Iron Horse

City Midnight Junk Strains

A Vow

Autumn Gold: New England Fall

Done, Finished with the Biggest Cock

Holy Ghost on the Nod over the Body of Bliss

Bayonne Turnpike to Tuscarora

An Open Window on Chicago

Returning North of Vortex

Wales Visitation

Pentagon Exorcism

Elegy Che Guevara

War Profit Litany

Elegies for Neal Cassady (1968)

        Elegy for Neal Cassady

Chicago to Salt Lake by Air

Kiss Ass

Manhattan Thirties Flash

Please Master

A Prophecy

Bixby Canyon

Crossing Nation

Smoke Rolling Down Street

Pertussin

Swirls of black dust on Avenue D

Violence