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Crossing Nation

Under silver wing

San Francisco's towers sprouting

thru thin gas clouds,

Tamalpais black-breasted above Pacific azure

Berkeley hills pine-covered below--

Dr Leary in his brown house scribing Independence

Declaration

typewriter at window

silver panorama in natural eyeball--

 

Sacramento valley rivercourse's Chinese

dragonflames licking green flats north-hazed

State Capitol metallic rubble, dry checkered fields

to Sierras- past Reno, Pyramid Lake's

blue Altar, pure water in Nevada sands'

brown wasteland scratched by tires

 

Jerry Rubin arrested! Beaten, jailed,

coccyx broken--

Leary out of action--"a public menace...

persons of tender years...immature

judgement...pyschiatric examination..."

i.e. Shut up or Else Loonybin or Slam

 

Leroi on *** gun rap, $7,000

lawyer fees, years' negotiations--

SPOCK GUILTY headlined temporary, Joan Baez'

paramour husband Dave Harris to Gaol

Dylan silent on politics, & safe--

having a baby, a man--

Cleaver shot at, jail'd, maddened, parole revoked,

 

Vietnam War flesh-heap grows higher,

blood splashing down the mountains of bodies

on to Cholon's sidewalks--

Blond boys in airplane seats fed technicolor

Murderers advance w/ Death-chords

Earplugs in, steak on plastic

served--Eyes up to the Image--

 

What do I have to lose if America falls?

my body? my neck? my personality?

 

June 19, 1968

Written by
Allen Ginsberg
1926-1997 / Male / American
Lines·Words
38·193
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