FOLLOW THE FLOWER TO THE GROUND for Allen Ginsberg on the occasion of his symposium at The Poetry Project May 3-5, 2018 Eravamo dei mostri. Gli esseri floreali sono esseri neri. Questa fronda di palma e bella come Rihanna e bella. Immagina l'anima di una pianta; immagina il mio, e il tuo. Eravamo dei mostri. Siamo stati mostri. ⬦ — What should I read besides Howl? — Just get The Collected. Informal proposal. Dubious green light. (Internal certainty.) Mama Moonchild bids a mysterious adieu, and — back to the dead — I return through the walkways of our glass lit cave listening for the m o o n c h i l d chorus of TwinVictories & BountifulGrain Resurrection. To their call my silent response I w a n t t o l i v e m y l i f e l i k e a f a i r y t a l e echoes in me still some twenty hours on. ⬦ At an outpost of a dominion where there are trees standing in the water I surrender our handmade document for cottoncottoncottonlinens of lesser (but immediate) value and let in the sweetness and relief they afford. Southward to Bleecker, farthest east of Old Bohemia, four strangers crowd POETRY in the otherwise empty Codex. I depart offering honest assurance of my return (gratified that I have been raised right in our Industry) and drift steadily southward toward Douglas who welcomes me through the gates of the seventh home that brought me to this evening’s Sanctuary Hall. ⬦ Together we find The Essential and — thriving home ever unquestioned — it becomes The Collected in my hands. We siblings talk, and our black waters surge swiftly away from raisins in the sun toward Lorraine in full, and some days later I do indeed remember to read what Dinnerstein says she thought of you & yours (and you). Easy in the gift of friendship, memory, and profit’s grace I surrender modest cottoncottoncottonlinen, confirm my Metaphysics, and head toward blood-stained fruit with: a rose now careening toward my glass moon; a sheath of corn; sundry minor cottoncottoncottonlinens; new metals and a fresh young bible for research. ⬦ Central and silent as history, woven threads of Gossypium hirsutum surround our likely hero, and ghosts of Bambusoideae dance above on the face of this perennial, light enough for the tub, canon enough for the ‘Gram, faint bouquet of temporary paper, cooly ready for our love. ⬦ I arrive at a party in chambray, pearls, and a good mood, am swiftly rewarded with the phrase biblical exegesis and smile in the morning as I continue to search for the plants in your work, you Master Outsider. For negritude, for flora, for death. Wood. Ivy. Paper. Grass. Trees. Pilot Spotliter Supreme and Pentel P207 by my side, in my hand, at the ready, I begin marking my path through our history. ⬦ Wood. Ivy. Paper. Grass. Trees. house of wood | grown over with ivy | paper bag | on the grass | and the wind on top of the trees. Rose. Rose. Flower. Blossom. Rose of spirit, rose of light | flower whereof all will tell | what Blossom Gathers us inward, astounded. Trees. Bough. Leaves. Shoot-Tips. Leaves. Trees. Today out the window the trees seemed like live organisms on the moon. Each bough extended upward covered at the north end with leaves, like a green hairy protuberance. I saw the scarlet-and-pink shoot-tips of budding leaves wave delicately in the sunlight, blown by the breeze, all the arms of the trees bending and straining downward at once when the wind pushed them. Flower. Petal. Weedy. Leaves. Daisy. Coconuts. Garden. Rose. Daisy. Coconuts. Garden. Rose. Daisy. Burlap. Flower. Poppy. Rose. Tree. Strawberries. Marshes. Marijuana. Peyote. Forests. Trees. Flower. Rose. Willows. Meadow. Wood. Flowers. Oak. Rose. Garden. Blossom. Tree. Marijuana. Plywood. Trees. Wooden. Trees. Forestlike. Trees. Lawn. Wine. Petals. Flowery. Rose. Tree. Bushes. Wooden. Wooden. Onions. Potted Palms. Wooden. Palms. Forest. Leaf. Vine. Leaf. Tree. Forest. Tree. Trees. Palms. Fronds. Moss. Paper. Forest. Leaf. Flowers. Trees. Leaves. Tree. Fields. Mahogany. Creosote. Plantain. Trees. Flower. Hay. Hay flower. Stem. Corolla. Cotton. Flower. Rose. Lettuce. Wood. Rye. Garden. Tequila. Branch. Tree. Grass. Garden. Laurel. Marijuana. Tree. Wine. Teahead. Tree. Rosegardens. Grass. Beer. Laurel. Orange. Borscht. Tortillas. Vegetable. Mustard. Beer. Wineglasses. Whiskey. Woodlawn. Daisychain. Potato. Salad. Rose. Trees. Flowers. Tea. Marijuana. Peyote. Bramble. Blackberries. Apricots. Leaves. Vines. Flowers. Stringbeans. Daisies. Grass. Garden. Plums. Tree. Trees. Fruit. Peaches. Avocados. (Partway through this poem, I made a footnote I could wear. Look upon my hot pink ye humans and despair. Le piante sono donne nere.) Tomatoes! Watermelons? Bananas? Artichokes. Trees. Cherry blossoms. Flowers. Garden. Sunflower. Banana. Roots. Trees. Sunflower. Sawdust. Sunflower. Sunflower. Corolla. Seeds. Leaves. Stem. Sawdust. Root. Twigs. Roots. Sawdust. Roots. Sunflower!. Sunflower. Flower. Flower. Flower. Sunflower. Sunflower. Sunflower. Seed. Sunflowers. Flower. Garden. Vine. Leaves. Flowers. Flowers. Garden. Blossoms. Flowers. Red bush blossoms. Stalk. Blossom. Cherry. Trees. Trees. Trees. Trees. Apples. Chocolate. Rose. Fruitpeddler. Trees. Plum blossoms. Marijuana. Roses. Marijuana. Flowerpots. Garbanzos. Silk. Flowers. ⬦ Wood. Labyrinth wood stairways. ⬦ We follow your work and consider displacement. Margin hero. Practice king. Making this work. Thinking of you. (And yours.) Privilege of your Post-War positioning. We’re steeped in cannabis too, you know, but now all the wars are infinite, Allen. Silent, too. I recall the peonies I left in the market. The peonies brought to life to be killed for me, to give to you. (God, they were beautiful ) ⬦ THERE IS NO GOD, BUT WE MAKE DO. Siamo stati mostri. Eravamo dei mostri. Viaggia con me, sulla corrente del linguaggio, attraverso il delta della realtà, e infine nella verità dell'infinito. Helianthus radiant at discomfiting height. Each sunflower threatens a crisis of Interbeing. Pupil dense with seeds that cooly promise infinite lifetimes of squaring up occhio per occhio. Altogether too large to be ignored. Negroes of the garden. ⬦ Radiant. Weed. Horror for sale. For free. Let the terror in, ye humans, and repair! Prune our perilous fragility. Pinch back our arrogance. Train our collective spine and MAKE HUMANITY GREAT FOR ONCE. (Every refugee is a canary.) Rose. Rose. Rose. Sunflower. ⬦ Segui il fiore a terra. Follow the flower to the ground. Segui il fiore a terra; troverai il coltello nell'anima. Troverai il coltello nel terreno. Follow the flower to the ground; you will find the knife in the soul. You will find the knife in the soil. ⬦ Behind each trusted gateway, limp regret. At the last, I confirm its death and turn slowly toward my mother, unsure I have seen her until quiet tears flash stinging in my eyes. A lioness gave birth to a hibiscus gave birth to me: Tigerlily stargazing in the mirror — stella per stella in perpetuo. Google Translate | AGNG, Laura Henriksen, Stacy Szymaszek, Nicole Wallace. Conversation. The Poetry Project Office. Mon 23 April 2018. | AGNG, Bookseller. Inquiry. Codex Books. Mon 23 April 2018. | AGNG, Douglas Singleton. Conversation. McNally Jackson Books. Mon 23 April 2018. | Susan Bartlett. “here we are in love careening toward death like a flower”. Greetings reading. Unnameable Books. May 2014. | Wikipedia. | Jay Sanders and guests. Conversation. The Annual Friends of Artists Space Dinner. The Bowery Hotel. Tues 01 May 2018. | Allen Ginsberg. Collected Poems 1947 – 1997. Harper Perennial Modern Classics: 2007, New York. | Michael Schumacher, ed. The Essential Allen Ginsberg. Harper Perennial: 2015, New York. | Adjua Gargi Nzinga Greaves. Writing Night improvisation. Wendy’s Subway Reading Room. 2017. | Oxford English Dictionary. 2018APRIL25W0553. BEDFORD-STUYVESANT. 40°41'20.0"N 73°56'40.0"W [40.698360, -73.947436]. TFR9780062362285wipAGNG