a coney island of the mind

'... Yes the world is the best place of all

for a lot of such things as

making the fun scene

and making the love scene

and making the sad scene

and singing low songs and having inspirations

and walking around

looking at everything

and smelling flowers

and goosing statues

and even thinking

and kissing people and

making babies and wearing pants

and waving hats and

dancing

and going swimming in rivers

on picnics

in the middle of the summer

and just generally

'living it up'

Yes

but then right in the middle of it

comes the smiling

mortician'

Just the second half of '11' (roughly arranged in the way it's published, but bastardized, sorry) from the third part of Lawrence Ferlinghetti's 'A Coney Island of the Mind'. I read this poem and 'Dog' in high school my sophomore year of English, and the teacher kept likening me to one of the free-r spirits Ferlinghetti likes to talk of. For example, I remember she asked 'Who here do you think would go around goosing statues?' and some people pointed and said 'Hana!'. I guess it's better that this realization was made when in high school rather than in college.

excerpt - The Happy Birthday of Death

from "DEATH"

Let's all die
Let's practice a little
Let's play dead for a couple of hours

Let's everybody weave elegant everlasting cerements
build fantastic tombs
carve lifelong coffins
and devise great ways to die let's!
Let's walk under ladders, cross the paths of black cats,
break mirrors, burn rabbit feet, snip the 4th petal,
Yes! Let's draw the ACE OF SPADES --
Let's sleep with our doors unlocked


--Gregory Corso, The Happy Birthday of Death

"this is you"

he wrote this for me.

Universal little sister
blinking sunlight that shines through genetics
laughing new shades of green
yet timid to burn our desks & currency for being figures in a dream
your revolution is a rainbow
feminine in its withdrawal for not being loved
holy in its reflection of the stars that were too bright to see
The giggles are the only hint of knowing god
Of knowing life is an exhibition yet to happen
Not afraid to not exist
"We never have and never will
with bodies"
so says the little sister
to the leaves