A High Wire Of Our Own Making

Once when I was visiting Allen (Ginsberg) in his apartment he asked me if I would like some coffee. Having said "yes," he presented me with a metal bowl with coffee in it. The bowl seemed strange (like a dog dish) and I nursed the coffee to cool it down. Soon he started asking "are you finished with that, man?" I would say "no, not yet" and after awhile I started to feel uncomfortable because the bowl seemed important to him. When I finally said "yes," he grabbed the bowl away — threw the remaining coffee in the sink and sat down with the bowl for his breakfast cereal. I was using his only bowl.
~ Larry Keenan

Fourth Floor, Dawn, Up All Night Writing Letters
By Allen Ginsberg

Pigeons shake their wings on the copper church roof
out my window across the street, a bird perched on the cross
surveys the city's blue-grey clouds. Larry Rivers
'll come at 10 AM and take my picture. I'm taking
your picture, pigeons. I'm writing you down, Dawn.
I'm immortalizing your exhaust, Avenue A bus.
O Thought, now you'll have to think the same thing forever!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Allen Ginsberg
Haiku:

Looking over my shoulder
my behind was covered
with cherry blossoms.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

My old desk:
the first thing I looked for
in my house.

My early journal:
the first thing I found
in my old desk.

My mother's ghost:
the first thing I found
in the living room.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Please visit the Poetry Foundation to read Constantly risking absurdity by Lawrence Ferlinghetti

it begins:

Constantly risking absurdity
and death
whenever he performs
above the heads
of his audience
the poet like an acrobat
climbs on rime
to a high wire of his own making

Diane has the Poetry Friday round-up at Random Noodling.