Giant Steps Press

Day 5: spoken word slinger Tony Roc Adamo celebrates Allen Ginsberg:

Allen Ginsberg and Jazz
I remember the first time I heard Ginsberg's voice,
A thunderous, cosmic howl that shook the air,
Like bebop horns wailing in the midnight noise,
A raw, unfiltered cry that stripped away despair.
His words, a jazz improvisation of the soul,
Breathless, wild, spinning in free flight,
A sacred chant, a rebel's roll,
Inviting us to dance in the neon light.
He was the poet as a bebop cat,
Slinging syllables like saxophone solos,
A spiritual anarchist, a love diplomat,
Breaking chains, defying all the old roles.
In his voice, I heard the universe's roar,
A call to be true, unshackled, free,
A portal to the sacred core,
Where art and life merge in harmony.
Allen Ginsberg, the beat's wild star,
Blazing through the darkness with cosmic fire,
His words, a jazz riff from afar,
Forever echoing, lifting us higher to right now, right here

Day Three: Three poems by GSP poet Steve Hirsch celebrating the lives of Allen Ginsberg & Peter Orlovsky:

Prophesy

for Allen Ginsberg



Body—Mind

mistaken fear, the future

like waves of the sea

signing the shore with an unspoken name

beautifully swallowing

the shaft of earth

right now.



This staff parts the dark waters

like a door opening into a vast mind

and though you may not find a

“sufficient phalanx of minute particulars”

we have got friends at the break of the wave

bright–eyed, gleaming–toothed ancestors

wearing flowing robes, mouthing

confucian profundities like chips

in an astral card game.



Do they feel the mist of the surf on their glowing faces?



As you dissolve with them into the night

will you tell me

how many friends

have joined you at the break of the wave?



Sitting here, your face

the time is changing

and you are becoming evident.





5/31/81

Rev. 7/24/89



Entering San Francisco

From the highway I see

blankets of buildings,

men and women under them

dressed in trenchcoats and fedoras

on mopeds.



Roller coaster roads falling off the horizon,

hills to the sky “Where’s Chinatown?”

Allen said to eat there

He knows chinatown grease pit

alley way plastic fish head tin can two bucks a dish.



Gone to Nevada.

I’m road sore but smiling.



My fortune cookie read

“Your place in life is behind the wheel.”





Boulder

Summer 79’

Rev.11/20/88



Cold Water



for Peter Orlovsky



I love my cold water

especially in the wintertime

— icy showers at RMDC*

— cold plunge in Cherry Valley

but your loss is like ice

down the back of my neck

a strike against what is left

of the sweet beat empire

that gives us growth

fertilizes the poetry farm.



all the vegetables are

finally smiling

with you to cultivate them

from inside

the spirit of life.



shock of the spine as the

keisaku swings across your back

gets a rise of the sacrum

and shake of your

grey ponytail.



warrior sits in the middle of a fast river

and contemplates the great

un-meaning

rushing past.



I sit here quite clean in-between

and force a crazy laugh at the moon

like Dean

a swallow of Jack

feet propped on stacks of books

playing banjo, fedora atilt

cigarette hanging from a thread of lip

svelt and smart and a realy gud spellr

surprise beneath Allen’s hat



he sat right down on it

and howled with joy.





*RMDC: Rocky Mountain Dharma Center

Boulder, 1980