poemsonpoets

Alan Ginsberg Dream




29/07/07

Alan: I decided to write down those memories I recall from the non-ego memory e.g,

When I was so little
I was barely a weight
in my mother’s hand…..

Then, I see in my dream, the reader has a choice between hyperlinks to reach the end of the poem. The hyperlinks become feely bags you can reach into and pull out the poems. Some of the bags are shaped like Teddies. Joyce knows some of the poems – she comes in as I am pulling out the one above. I wake up.

1946

When I was so little
I was barely a weight
in my mother’s hand

knitted shoes
the size
of her thumb

the beating
of her heart
was my Paris

the conversation
of strangers
London’s mighty roar.



1956

Being on the river
with my mother when
she was still young
enough to fall
on the pavement, pick
herself up & carry on –
luckily her glasses
not broken.

Tall just up to her
shoulder, sitting together
on the wood-slat,
cracked varnish seats
and reading the names
on the sides of barges
yachts & launches and she
knowing I am short-sighted,
saying: “You may
need glasses some day.”



196-

From the Summer
of being fucked up what did I learn?
That people we don’t know
are just as important as people we do,
and other people’s mothers and fathers and best friends.

That night I travelled up the Northern Line
thinking to sleep at my Auntie’s house:
all locked up and silent, forgot she’s
away the weekend – stalled me - I travelled way down
the Northern line to Oval, Cleaver Square
to tell Martin about my girlfriend
and having nowhere to sleep –
and chanting Martin, Martin to no effect, no
window slung open in reply –

Up the Northern line, back up again –
in Pond square I found a
parked car – the replica of Martin’s
black 1950’s Morris his parents ‘d bought him
second hand – knowing it’s not Martin’s car
I get in and find there’s a neatly
folded blanket on the front
seat – curl up that summer night
in door-mouse comfort, feeling
like a Camembert in a picnic basket
sleeping until 6.0 am, when I



stealthily slip the handle up & roll out
onto well-worn tarmac under green Highgate Trees,
remembering to refold the blanket


thankful for this unlocked car
in the morning when Ginsberg was
king of Czechoslovakia
and the May – headed back past Highgate Cemetary to
Achway, and Mum and Dad in Brighton
for the weekend, saying I
spent the night with a friend.

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