Agosto 20, 2005

Death of the American Indian's God (Gregory Corso)

Death of the American Indian's God

The Mandan village is covered with snow
The blanketed chiefs on parfleches blow
Women in tufts of weasel press tapioca
And the lacrosse game is almost over —
Fling wompsikkucks at the Evening Star
The Mighty One Tirawa Atius is lain
on the bright travois

He in His own raced hills and valleys
      wore skins birds and calumets
He in His own the laughing Koyemshi
       dogclowned all our sunsets
Give proper ceremony O Pawnee
The last caribou has been arrowed
       the last trout speared
Beetle bells and medicine yells
Everyone is dressed in crow

      They where the redmen
       feathers-in-their-head men
       now
       down among the dead men
       how

Referencia

Gregory Corso (1962): "Death of the American Indian's God", en: Long Live Man. ND Paperbook, 127. Nueva York: New Directions Books.

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Agosto 18, 2005

Man (Gregory Corso)

Man

Prologue to what has to be a long long poem

The good scope of him is history, old and ironic;
Not modern history, unfulfilled and blurred —
Bleak damp fierce thunderous lightning days;
Poor caveman, so scared of the outside,
So afeared of its power and beauty,
Created a limit, and called that limit God —
Cell, fish, apeman, Adam;
How was the first man born?
And why has he ceased being born that way?

Air his fuel, will his engine, legs his wheels,
Eyes the steer, ears the alert;
He could not fly, but now he does —
The nails hair teeth bones blood
All in communion with the flesh;
The heart that feels all things in life
And lastly feels in death;
The hands in looks and action are masterful;
The eyes the eyes;
The penis is a magic wand,
The womb is greater than Spring —

I do not know if he be Adam's heir
Or kin to ape,
No man knows; what a good driving mystery —
I can imagine a soul, the soul leaving the body,
The body feeding death, death simply a hygiene;
I can wonder the world the factory of the soul,
The soul putting on a body like a workman's coveralls,
Building, unbuilding, rebuilding.
That man can think soul is a great strange wonderful thing —

In the beginning was the word; man has spoken —
The Jews, the Greeks; chaos groping behind;
Exalted dignity sings; the blind angel's cithara
Twanged no chain-reaction that World War be the Trojan War,
Not with the goddess Eris denied a wedding seat;
No praise of man in my war, wars have lost their legendariness —
The Bible sings man in all his glory;
Great Jew, man is hard stem of you,
Was you first spoke love, O noble survivor;
The Greeks are gone, the Egyptians have all but vanished;
Your testament yet holds —

The fall of man stands a lie before Beethoven,
A truth before Hitler —
Man is the victory of life,
And Christ be the victory of man —
King of the universe is man, creator of gods;
He knows no thing other than himself
And he knows himself the best he can;
He exists as a being of nature
And sustains all things in being;
His dream can go beyond existence —
Greater the rose?
The simple bee does not think so;
When man sings birds humble to piety;
What history can the whale empire sing?
What genius ant dare break from anthood
As can man from manhood?
King Agamemnon! Mortal man!
Ah, immortality —