TRYING
A personal reproduction of Howl by Allen Ginsberg.
I saw the best minds of my generation crippled by age, old young, then, soon, not now
Never allowed a word to prove the hungry wrong and the starving right
Who were stamped with an expiration date as crucial as the one on three-week old milk,
Who rocked and rolled then only rocked, assured that they had left behind anything of value beside their 1961 Lincoln Continental that only cost 10 months,
Who saw the man on the moon and could not wait to tell their children’s children about it, and when they did: “I know, you already told me,” and ignored it.
Who trusted their latchkey boys, knowing better, until they received a call from a 15 year old girl’s livid father…
Who didn’t understand what had changed so much that they were forced to make room for the next, babies of the millennium, ripe and soft, with brains as sparsely impressed upon as their parents new white carpet,
Then 6 years later spilled the last tube of blue paint before the carpet was ripped out of the house and landed with a thud on top of the training wheels she still needed in the plastic black fly heaven,
Crying silently as she heard her parents point out so much hate, keeping blame locked in her music box alarm with the 8 second prelude she despised more and more with each day,
Who knew there was credit due for enduring nap time, story time, snack time, boring time that did not end until they grew, but still not enough to be listened to,
Who watched the cool feel old and the loser stay young, when did out become good and in become not?
They said, “do not speak unless spoken to,” and compliance is key until they lose the lock, and give up the rule to the ones who find it
She gets it first
How she bends the metal, twists and bites an extension of her hinges bolted stuck
Stretch first, pulling the metal out of her side like taffy
Just like making the woman, she makes herself.
Bend, reshape this piece of woman to finally fit.
Insert, like so many that came to her before
Finally turn, finally feeling the pieces fit…
Click.
Cartoon-like, still realer than the art she makes…
Thoughts and words color desires
Truer than everything before them.
Aspiring to spark minds,
Embers tumble down spines to start fires in the belly
Her body is an empty vessel
Not exactly without anything but definitely without something
Tiny pieces of old soft brain tissue become burning red with the new
Land in the spot where her stomach used to be,
and will be again,
Latch on like parasites and feed off of her and grow inside of her
So that she has the guts that now know what to do
They ding their way down her pinball arms to her fingertips
So that she knows how to feel
They drop down to her feet
(She still doesn’t know exactly where to go but)
So that she never stops Walking
Rushing to and running from the same thing, herself.
Keeping pace with those ahead, never slowing to catch the train,
Subconsciously trying to open her veins, obsessed with something like oxygen but possessed by the toxic and satisfying fumes of the city she called home before she had ever seen it.
Crying in the shower, remembering all she left behind
Smart enough to know to move on but too stupid to actually do it,
Thinking, checking, gazing, becomes a cycle:
Stare out - thought comes – check phone
Blank screen? Her fault.
Earth legs searching for roots, each step takes the strength of moving 100 branches and indefinitely more.
Days of rain and repeated…people…phrases…pictures
Offer something to soak up.
Veins turgid soul upright basically playing by her own rules
For the first time
Maybe the last
Ignoring the fact of the latter she Walks and thinks
Thinking about Walking and Walking around her thoughts
Passing peers who pierce through her
Never without pain, though some the kind she likes
A girl with a thing in the nose, but she could never have that.
A boy who makes her stomach light and heavy at the same time, but she could never have him.
Teaching herself to learn and learning to teach herself
Making herself known will help her know herself too
No? Then what were all those nights for?
Outside of her element and inside of herself
Dancing with men she’ll never know
The dance of life
Feet go from floor to air and then back
Sir Newton was correct;
What goes up must come down
What goes down doesn’t always come up
Looking into eyes and finding no one there
They do not search or wander or even look
Are they turned around to gaze upon their reflection?
She finds insult in this but the female friends tell her no, and the male ones say “I don’t know”.
When will people learn that “I don’t know” means yes or no?
Rarely does it ever signify actual absence of knowledge
Our thoughts sway from life to life and moment to moment
So someone always knows something
Knowing that a New York City rumble is the train and a Los Angeles rumble is the earth
Means power.
Power to know and power to feel
To reassure a lesser travelled acquaintance
Or a lesser taught friend
A brush of the arm, a roll of the eyes, a slow crooked smile,
Decoding every gesture becomes ritual
Sharing a notion gathered through inference
She could write a book on this shit
Using people as lessons, the most experiential way to live.
A life experienced for the experience and not the liver:
Is it a good or bad thing? I don’t know.
Do you believe me?
I don’t care, to be frank. Who is Frank anyway?
Not caring what a person thinks but still hoping for some semblance of an impression
Lying to yourself but still believing the opposite
I suppose that is a sign of intelligence or maybe just stubbornness
The bull is loyal, true, and kind
But unbudging
Loyal to others and too much to herself,
Keeping the promise to not stray
Wanting to be like others but stay the same
Transforming with every step
Absorbing the rancid smells that are just as crucial as the snapshots that live in her brain for reference
Marveling in the thousands of things that come together to make up the city she lives in:
New York City
Eyes chasing the zillions of things passing by
Trying to keep focus on one thing but it’s impossible
They’re all either running from something or chasing another,
Unlike her she is different
The man who takes a picture for proof,
invading space through a camera lens
Invading lives that pretend to not hate him.
He doesn’t know he is despicable and probably won’t ever,
Until one day someone pulls one of the triggers that have been pointed at him for so long…
The man who comes to the coffee shop looking for anything but caffeine,
Weaves his way through a human assembly line of money
To sit, he strikes out today.
He watches one girl, hair almost as long as her big sweater
Until she leaves with another
Though she seems reluctant he focuses on the shoes her man wears, ignoring the fact that with luck or persistence he would have a chance.
Tell me why this girl looks like an angel
And this man looks like a princess
And this dog looks like a human
And this car looks like an insect
This day looks like a dream but tomorrow will be a nightmare.
The on and off sway of days, some drag along while others are propelled forward
By a promise they discovered or a truth they ignore
A certain kind of day makes everyone the same, but she could never know why
Bodies rush past, in different directions but all going the same way, children in big bodies who think their brains match
If it wasn’t for the older brother’s fake ID in high school
Or the first joint and everyone saying “it’s okay”
Maybe they wouldn’t fuck up so much
Maybe they don’t actually fuck up
And the people who tell them they do, are the real fuck ups
Who raise themselves based on false hopes and fabricated images, finding pride in the intellectual
Imagining the infrastructure of a girl who hurts herself by letting others do it first
Bony knees; how do they hold her up?
Fortified stretches of calcium trusted with all she is
Fold into something that will one day explode
Gently, or destroying all she knows, is determined by everything except her.
Two men contemplating a floral arrangement,
Both with bags slung over their shoulders
What a strange time
Where women are men and men are women except for in one area
A waist small enough to be encompassed by two hands
Ears pierced with the finest gold
Businessman pants, businesswoman purse
Hair long enough to be tied back
A bracelet on the wrist and a ring on the finger.
Who wears the match?
Someone who braves the day just like I do, but in a different way because I am still ringless
Desire be there or not, a certain time and connection is required all within one long moment of living.
Coffee and wine both stain, oh how we like it so.
Yearning for a mark to show you are worth the attention.
Only when a brain is tattooed can the skin be as well.
Those who brand themselves without thought are a special kind of human
Accepting of something out of the ordinary
So different from the glass ball we all wish to find
Begging to know something of our future,
In character or circumstance.
The girl who sits alone with an ugly gold purse
And a hairclip that tames frizzy highlighted hair (an attempt to improve her look)
She looks at me, and speaking timidly, a plea for a favor
Remembering all her mother taught her about being polite and not imposing
And all her father said about getting what you want in this world.
A father walks his daughter through the park, unaware of the stress she will unintentionally cause him later.
A woman walks in the rain, guarded by the contraption she holds over her head, her only friend.
A man stands 50 feet high in a big orange machine, obscenely aware of his occupation.
The city looks the same.
Only if you stare hard can you see the billions of raindrops covering every square inch
The city is an illusion.
The rain is matter just as much as the wall
Except for the air that passes through the trajectory of each drop, making the wet curtain completely transparent.
If you try hard enough, you can see through anything.
Water, things, people…
People are the easiest, especially girls with green hair
Trying so hard to be different
That their uniqueness in fact becomes “a look”, characterized by green wavy hair and nice earrings and boots.
In words, it means either: “Fuck you Mom and Dad” or
“Thank you Mom and Dad.”
A tree that grows is not taught; it knows inherently.
A person that destroys is taught.
Who did it first?
What happened in the very first fight?
Whose feelings were the first to get hurt?
An evil seed planted by something good
Grew to teach the bad
On and on and on the cycle goes
Crying is not that; it is trying
Trying to cry?
Trying to deal, trying to accept, trying to forget
Wondering when pleasure will resurface
Keeping going keep going you will find it
You are so much more and everything else compared to the pseudos that swarm around you
They learn fancy talk, thousands of words to adopt, but one sticks and keeps control.
II
Age! Age, age! Age takes, age gets, age only gives the stuff of numbers,
Quantifying the quality of a life, slap a number on it and the whole world treats you as such.
One single witness grows to make an army of enemies!
No? Some do say no
No to the wrinkles on your face; I do not have the feet of a crow
No to the changing color of hair; I am a brunette
No to the shrinking of spine; I am confident
No to the doctor’s visits; I am not sick
No to the ugly clothing; I have my own style
No to the sagging of lips; I like to smile
Smiling so much is what gave me thinner lips
Squinting into the sun while enjoying the earth is what gave me wrinkles
Wrinkles years dollars debt kids junk acquaintances walk by and take what you wanted and once deserved
Age, prevents you from keeping what you need, no matter how many times you looked at another with yours by your side, and aimlessly hoped for a glance back
(Playing this game for decades, still hoping for that semblance of attention.
Intention never goes away, but maybe affection or inflection.)
Age, forces you to buy loose clothes with nothing special or indicative of how the tight ones once made you feel so good
Roaming the streets, sisters of the night
Who wait a weeks time for the big reveal
Princesses planning a night to forget
Prancing around looking for their princes
Party to club to bar to party
She finds three, she finds one, she finds none
So happy on the outside to have had an exciting night
Beating herself up on the inside for being a prude
What she doesn’t know is that she is just not wanted.
Where is her outer Goddess?
A man doesn’t want a girl’s body…
Age, reminds you that nothing is ever enough!
Enough hair is not enough clothing is not enough make up
Is not enough ass.
Age, held you then and it will hold you now.
That was bad then, it’s even worse now.
Look forward until you look back, and only stop to turn around but don’t you dare slow down on the way.
You can’t stop it, even after you realize that you wished you never started.
You are born diagnosed and die a slow, painless death, silent all along.
Age takes what it wants and gives what you hate
Love! Peace! Respect! Compassion! All destroyed by age, a little drop kills enough,
Truth! Believe until you find another
Lost loves and found ideas, never given a window to yell from or a book to publish.
III
The silenced, underestimated, shut out, shooed away
I, too,
Can feel the energy boiled up inside
I, too,
Am not permitted to mean what I say or say what I mean until they’ve had enough
I, too,
Have no assurance of the future, will I stay? Will I go?
I, too,
Misunderstood what they meant when they told me to think; not really, shut up and play before you get too smart
I, too,
Experienced the unjust accusations, just symptoms of the age in me
(Don’t say that to me, don’t think that way, I’m right you’re wrong)
I, too,
Witness fresh minds try to find the narrowest path to the rotten answer, only to forget roads taken all the days before
I, too,
Will pave my path to find my own
I, too,
Intend to prove them all wrong – she rules forever.
I, too,
Promise to not give in to the age. Keep the brain! Nurture the mind! Love the physical.
Everything that’s anything is not the same.