Reading Time

[Pop-pop !!sKhVd0ugY0U No.17638267]

Good evening /lit/. Yesterday we lost the great voice of Lawrence Ferlinghetti at the age of 101. I'll be honest with you fellas, I didn't know he was still alive until I found he had passed, yet it's always a sad day when an artist moves on. I also found out through his passing that he owned a book shop in California which I hope I may be able to visit one day. But alas! I'm getting distracted, it is reading time after all and I must read you a poem before bed, so tonight I have decided to read to you a poem of Ferlinghetti's which he wrote about my own home town, so with further adieu:

New York - Albany

God I had forgotten how
the Hudson burns
in indian autumn
Saugerties
Coxsackie
fall away through
all those trees
The leaves die turning
falling fallen
falling into loam of dark
yellow into death
Disappearing
falling fallen falling
those 'pestilence-stricken multitudes'
blown all blasted
They are hurting them
with wood rakes
They are raking them
in great hills
They are burning them
the leaves curl burning
the curled smoke gives up
to eternity
Never
never the same leaf turn again
the same leaves burn
In a red field
a white stallion stands
and pees his oblivion
upon those leaves
washing my bus window
only now blacked out
by a covered bridge
we flash through
only once
No roundtrip ticket
never returning the youth years fallen
away back then
Under the Linden trees in Boston Common
Trees think through these woods of years
They flame forever
with those thoughts I did not see eternity
the other night
but now in burning
turning day
Every bush burns
Love licks
all down
All gone
In the red end
Small nuts fall
Mine too.


Good night friends, and sleep well.

"If you're too open minded; your brains will fall out." - Lawrence Ferlinghetti

[Anonymous No.17638770]

I saw him do a reading once at City Lights Bookstore. End of an era.