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More poems by Allen GinsbergAllen Ginsberg | Print this page.Print | View and Write CommentsComments | Books by Allen GinsbergBooks by Allen Ginsberg

Crossing Nation

Allen Ginsberg

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 bum 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

Added: 25 Mar 2002 | Last Read: 7 Jun 2025 11:50 PM | Viewed: 7261 times

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URL: http://plagiarist.com/poetry/3739/ | Viewed on 7 June 2025.
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