Laughing Gas IV | Allen Ginsberg, 1955-56
The red tin begging cup you gave me,
I lost it but its contents are undisturbed.
IV
Back in the same old black hole
where Possibility closes the
last door
and the Great Void remains
… a glass
in the dust reflecting the sun,
fragment of a bottle
that never knew it existed
. . . under a tree
that sleeps all winter
till it grows its eyes
in May heat
and flowers upward with a thousand
green sensations
dies, and forgets itself in Snow
. . . Phantom in Phantom
If we didn’t exist, God
would have to create this
to leave no room for complaint
by any of the birds & bees
who might have missed their
chance (to be)
Fate tells big lies.
. . . And the big kind Dreamer
is on the nod again
God sleeps!
He’s in for a big surprise
one of his dreams is going to come true
He’ll get the answer too
He’ll get the answer too
Just a flash in the cosmic pan
— -just an instant when there
might have been a light
had there been any pan
to reflect it —
— we can lie on the bed and imagine
ourselves away —
I’m afraid to stop breathing —
first the pain in the
body
suffocation, then
the Death.
Allen Ginsberg, Howl, Before & After,
San Francisco Bay Area, 1955-56
