Back to Issue Thirteen

 

Coffee with Allen Ginsberg by Michal Rubin

Coffee with Allen Ginsberg

As I write in your America     you

peer through the grave

nod             waiting

and you call out

 

blossoms are falling in the heat of the sun

libraries are filled with tears

there is going to be trouble

 

when you were seven

your momma took you to Communist meetings

everybody was angelic and sentimental

 

in Jerusalem

my father spoke of stolen land and unions

he was reading Marx

 

after your mother died you walked

reading the Kaddish aloud

the rhythm     the rhythm                 you wrote

yitbarach veyishtabach veyitpaar veyitromam veyitnase

 

for my father     no kaddish was said

maybe that was perfectly right

like your mother         my father

didn't pray

 

wrestling, you and I, with our own Americas you said,

there might be a rising             there’s going to be trouble

you knew,     and in my keening I say,

there is a dying