- 北有云溪
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Improvisation in Beijing, Allen Ginsberg
I write poetry because the English word Inspiration comes from Latin Spiritus, breath, and I want to breathe freely.
I write poetry because Walt Whitman gave world permission to speak with candor.
I write poetry because Walt Whitman opened up poetry"s verse-line for unobstructed breath.
I write poetry because Ezra Pound saw an ivory tower, bet on one wrong horse, gave poets permission to write spoken vernacular idiom.
I write poetry because Pound pointed young Western poets to look at Chinese writing word pictures.
I write poetry because W.C. Williams living in Rutherford wrote New Jerseyesque "I kick yuh eye," asking, how measure that in iambic pentameter?
I write poetry because my father was poet my mother from Russia spoke Communist, died in a mad house.
I write poetry because young friend Gary Snyder sat to look at his thoughts as part of external phenomenal world just like a 1984 conference table.
I write poetry because I suffer, born to die, kidneystones and high blood pressure, everybody suffers.
I write poetry because I suffer confusion not knowing what other people think.
I write because poetry can reveal my thoughts, cure my paranoia also other people"s paranoia.
I write poetry because my mind wanders subject to sex politics Buddhadharma meditation.
I write poetry to make accurate picture my own mind.
I write poetry because I took Bodhisattva"s Four Vows: Sentient creatures to liberate are numberless in the universe, my own greed anger ignorance to cut thru"s infinite, situations I find myself in are countless as the sky okay, while awakened mind path"s endless.
I write poetry because this morning I woke trembling with fear what could I say in China?
I write poetry because Russian poets Mayakovsky and Yesenin committed suicide, somebody else has to talk.
I write poetry because my father reciting Shelley English poet & Vachel Lindsay American poet out loud gave example - big wind inspiration breath.
I write poetry because writing sexual matters was censored in United States.
I write poetry because millionaires East and West ride Rolls-Royce limousines, poor people don"t have enough money to fix their teeth.
I write poetry because my genes and chromosomes fall in love with young men not young women.
I write poetry because I have no dogmatic responsibility one day to the next.
I write poetry because I want to be alone and want to talk to people.
I write poetry to talk back to Whitman, young people in ten years, talk to old aunts and uncles still living near Newark, New Jersey.
I write poetry because I listened to black Blues on 1939 radio, Leadbelly and Ma Rainey.
I write poetry inspired by youthful cheerful Beatles" songs grown old.
I write poetry because Chuang-tzu couldn"t tell whether he was butterfly or man, Lao-tzu said water flows downhill, Counfucius said honor elders, I wanted to honor Whitman.
I write poetry because overgrazing sheep and cattle Mongolia to U.S. Wild West destroys new grass & erosion creates deserts.
I write poetry wearing animal shoes.
I write poetry "First thought, best thought" always.
I write poetry because no ideas are comprehensible except as manifested in minute particulars: "No ideas but in things."
I write poetry because the Tibetan Lama guru says, "Things are symbols of themselves."
I write poetry because newspapers headline a black hole at our galaxy-center, we"re free to notice it.
I write poetry because World War I, World War II, nuclear bomb, and World War III if we want it, I don"t need it.
I write poetry because first poem Howl not meant to be published was prosecuted by the police.
I write poetry because my second long poem Kaddish honored my mother"s parinivana in mental hospital.
I write poetry because Hitler killed six million Jews, I"m Jewish.
I write poetry because Moscow said Stalin exiled 20 million Jews and intellectuals to Siberia, 15 million never came back to the Stray Dog Café, St. Petersburg.
I write poetry because I sing when I"m lonesome.
I write poetry because Walt Whitman said, "Do I contradict myself? Very well then I contradict myself (I am large, I contain multitudes.)"
I write poetry because my mind contradicts itself, one minute in New York, next minute the Dinaric Alps.
I write poetry because my head contains 10,000 thoughts.
I write poetry because no reason no because.
I write poetry because it"s the best way to say everything in mind within 6 minutes or a lifetime.
October 21, 1984
- 豆豆staR
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because the English word inspiration
comes from Latin: spiritus, ‘breath"
and I wanted to breathe freely”
I write poetry because I miss walking to Woolworth"s,
with my Mom,
to buy Garbage Pail Kids
to trade with friends
I write poetry because I think it"s wrong how animals are slaughtered
and brand-name-clothing made by some kid in a sweatshop,
yet I still enjoy a fat T-bone steak
and a new pair of Nikes
I write poetry because I"ve been arrested more than once,
for painting pictures on tombstone walls
no one gave a shit about
I write poetry because I"m as big a hypocrite
as people I want to bitch-slap
for being hypocrites
I write poetry because I"m embarrassed
to tell people with body odor
to take a shower,
because there is no reason
for anyone who lives in a country this spoiled,
to smell like shit
I write poetry because a poet named Lime said
on September 11,th America got its two front teeth knocked out
and I wish I had thought of that!
I write poetry because being in love is like a woman ripping out my chest hairs
with her teeth, planting them in her back yard
to grow a tree of voodoo dolls
she"ll stab with rusty nails
I write poetry because I love Janice Joplin,
Jim Morrison, Jimmy Hendrix, James Brown, Jack Kerouac,
and just realized all their names start with the letter J
I write poetry because I"m tired of sex without love.
Maybe if Laura Bush were to give George a little more love,
he wouldn"t stick his missile
in other countries
I write poetry because revolutionary minds bleed to create art
rich people use
as status symbols
I write poetry because this country is turning into a game of Jenga
as the government pulls art funding,
social assistance,
and music programs
I write poetry because I surf in the same ocean where nuclear weapons are tested,
oil is spilled, gutters drained
and I"m afraid my penis will shrivel
into a noodle
I write poetry because I once heard
masturbation is the devil"s handshake
and think that"s pretty damn funny
I write poetry because I sometimes feel a bone on my body
I never noticed before and wonder
“is that supposed to be there?”
I write poetry because there is an old
man who lives under the 405,
who eats from my dumpster,
who can write a better poem than me
I write poetry because you can"t put a price tag on truth
because emotions can not be compromised,
because honesty is not always the best policy
and sometimes we need to just
shut the fuck up!