Challenge was to write a Beat poem, and how appropriate, since this week we are studying the Beats on ModPo (Modern & Contemporary American Poetry via UPenn on Coursera.org) with Professor Al Filreis and friends.
Something about Ginsberg‘s ashcans struck a chord, and this riff on Ginsberg was the result. Certainly not a long rant by any means, and I did a combination of found poem and original phrasing.
Howling at the Sun
The ashcans of America rise up and rant out of their dark alleys of broken glass,
beat and battered and brilliant through the stale beer of doom
floating out of the hydrogen afternoon in Brooklyn, lost conversation
on the windowsills threatening to jump screaming
and vomiting eyeballs disgorged from subways
endlessly ridden beneath neon blinking lights fueled by benzedrine
clattering past cemeteries where bodies locked in bone-grinding dance
of ashes wander at midnight in the cosmos of Idaho
amid visionaries in limousines of winter illumined by the streetlights
and washed in rural rain, spattered in jazz riffs, hopeless and incomprehensible in the light of morning
at the bottom of a river bloated with orange crates and gibberish, coughing out the skeletons drifting down towards New Jersey in the animal soup of alchemy in a metered timeless unknown, naked and bleached, the suns of a thousand Augusts.
Carol A. Stephen
October 15, 2013
Related articles
- Meeting the Bar: The Beat Poets and their Poetry (dversepoets.com)
- Ginsberg’s Howl Versus American Censorship (artlark.org)
Quillfyre 
This is so damn good! A true beat poem.
Anna :o]
Thanks, Anna, glad you enjoyed it. And thanks for visiting today
lost conversation
on the windowsills threatening to jump screaming
and vomiting eyeballs disgorged from subways…very cool… love how you capture the atmosphere in this.. the skeletons and suns of thousand augusts…bodies locked in bone-grinding dance…wonderful images…
Thanks, Claudia, for the feedback and for visiting!
Wonderful energy in this, the long lines work perfectly. I especially like the “vomiting eyeballs,” eyes that are sated to the point of sickness by the vision of existence. Excellent work!
Thanks, nico, for the feedback, and glad you liked the poem!
oh this is rich…i love the descriptors that really set the tone….vivid and nice intensity to it…i could quote back most of it, but i will spare you…top notch stuff to say the least…
Thanks, Brian! Glad you enjoyed it!
Brilliant images – what a pairing having just read PoetAviator’s poem on LA. They seem to fit together. This definitely channels the Beats – but brings your own uniqueness to it. Excellent.
Thanks, Gay. Both for the feedback and the visit.
This was very cool – those long lines, and rhythm that workes so well reading it aloud… and those eyeballs and skeletons — what imagery.
Thanks, Björn. I admit I was not so sure about the eyeball image…
Good one, Carol! The more I read/listen to Ginsberg, the more I love him. And you certainly captured his approach here.
Thanks, Linda. Yes, his poems really capture my attention too, glad you liked this one!