POEM OF THE DAY -- "Number 8" by Lawrence Ferlinghetti

This is the last in our weekly POEM OF THE DAY series featuring Lawrence Ferlinghetti.  "Number 8" is a fitting departure from some of the more characteristic poems we published earlier in the week.  Typically Ferlinghetti's poems are intellectual rather than spiritual in nature and feel.

This one is distinctly spiritual.  Enjoy it!

Number 8

by Lawrence Ferlinghetti


It was a face which darkness could kill
in an instant
a face as easily hurt
by laughter or light

'We think differently at night'
she told me once
lying back languidly

And she would quote Cocteau

'I feel there is an angel in me' she'd say
'whom I am constantly shocking'

Then she would smile and look away
light a cigarette for me
sigh and rise

and stretch
her sweet anatomy

let fall a stocking

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POEM OF THE DAY -- "Bird With Two Right Wings" by Lawrence Ferlinghetti

Here is one of Ferlinghetti's more memorable "Political" poems.  Although this poem was written around 2002 - long after his run as the owner of "City Lights Bookstore" and one of the founding fathers of the original beat movement in the 1950's and early 1960's, this poem retains the true cynical view of those earlier times.

The guy was brilliant to the end...comments please, in honor of Ferly!

Bird With Two Right Wings 

by Lawrence Ferlinghetti

And now our government
a bird with two right wings
flies on from zone to zone
while we go on having our little fun & games
at each election
as if it really mattered who the pilot is
of Air Force One
(They're interchangeable, stupid!)
While this bird with two right wings
flies right on with its corporate flight crew
And this year its the Great Movie Cowboy in the cockpit
And next year its the great Bush pilot
And now its the Chameleon Kid
and he keeps changing the logo on his captains cap
and now its a donkey and now an elephant
and now some kind of donkephant
And now we recognize two of the crew
who took out a contract on America
and one is a certain gringo wretch
who's busy monkeywrenching
crucial parts of the engine
and its life-support systems
and they got a big fat hose
to siphon off the fuel to privatized tanks
And all the while we just sit there
in the passenger seats
without parachutes
listening to all the news that's fit to air
over the one-way PA system
about how the contract on America
is really good for us etcetera
As all the while the plane lumbers on
into its postmodern
manifest destiny 

 

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POEM OF THE DAY -- "A Vast Confusion" by Lawrence Ferlinghetti

Written years ago, this poem is still meaningful somehow in its description of the spiritual state of the world today as it was 50 years ago. Somehow I think Ferlinghetti felt he could do something about it (reference the Moog Synthesizer reversal of all things) through the spirit of change. You know...as one of the founders of the "Beat" generation and movement - he DID do something about it - he had a hand in changing the world.  Alas, the change was only temporary.  We're back where we started relatively speaking.

Hence the new relativity!

Enjoy this piece!

A Vast Confusion

By Lawrence Ferlinghetti

Long long I lay in the sands

Sounds of trains in the surf
in subways of the sea
And an even greater undersound
of a vast confusion in the universe
a rumbling and a roaring
as of some enormous creature turning
under sea and earth
a billion sotto voices murmuring
a vast muttering
a swelling stuttering
in ocean's speakers
world's voice-box heard with ear to sand
a shocked echoing
a shocking shouting
of all life's voices lost in night
And the tape of it
someow running backwards now
through the Moog Synthesizer of time
Chaos unscrambled
back to the first
harmonies
And the first light


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POEM OF THE DAY -- "Truth is not a secret of the few" by Lawrence Ferlinghetti

Truth is not the secret of a few

by Lawrence Ferlinghetti

'Truth is not the secret of a few'
yet
you would maybe think so
the way some
librarians
and cultural ambassadors and
especially museum directors
act

you'd think they had a corner
on it
the way they
walk around shaking
their high heads and
looking as if they never
went to the bath
room or anything

But I wouldn't blame them
if I were you
They say the Spiritual is best conceived
in abstract terms
and then too
walking around in museums always makes me
want to
'sit down'
I always feel so
constipated
in those
high altitudes

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POEM OF THE DAY -- "Constantly Risking Absurdity" by San Francisco Poet Laureate Lawrence Ferlinghetti

I am a wild soul. Therefore, when one of our Twitter friends suggested Ferlinghetti, followed by another follower suggesting "a Beat Poet" in general, I reverted to my early roots and thought YES! YES! I need this blast from the past.

Long famous for his decision to publish Ginsberg's classic poetic rant "Howl" - and his association with Jack Kerouac and other famous and influential thinkers of the time, Ferlinghetti was an accomplished poet in his own right. In fact, he was named San Francisco Poet Laureate - which, if you think of it, is pretty meaningful considering the wealth of revolutionary culture going on there in North Beach. So, walk into the City Lights Bookstore, look around, buy a bottle of wine across the street (in a bag) and sit in the park and drink it -

- and channel Ginsberg, Kerouac, and Ferlinghetti until you're silly drunk (I've done this - but that's a story for another time). Enjoy Ferlinghetti week!!!

Constantly Risking Absurdity

by Lawrence Ferlinghetti

Constantly risking absurdity
and death
whenever he performs
above the heads
of his audience
the poet like an acrobat
climbs on rime
to a high wire of his own making
and balancing on eyebeams
above a sea of faces
paces his way
to the other side of the day
performing entrachats
and sleight-of-foot tricks
and other high theatrics
and all without mistaking
any thing
for what it may not be
For he's the super realist
who must perforce perceive
taut truth
before the taking of each stance or step
in his supposed advance
toward that still higher perch
where Beauty stands and waits
with gravity
to start her death-defying leap
And he
a little charleychaplin man
who may or may not catch
her fair eternal form
spreadeagled in the empty air
of existence

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POEM OF THE DAY - "Constantly Risking Absurdity" by Lawrence Ferlinghetti

Constantly Risking Absurdity

by Lawrence Ferlinghetti

Constantly risking absurdity
and death
whenever he performs
above the heads
of his audience
the poet like an acrobat
climbs on rime
to a high wire of his own making
and balancing on eyebeams
above a sea of faces
paces his way
to the other side of the day
performing entrachats
and sleight-of-foot tricks
and other high theatrics
and all without mistaking
any thing
for what it may not be
For he's the super realist
who must perforce perceive
taut truth
before the taking of each stance or step
in his supposed advance
toward that still higher perch
where Beauty stands and waits
with gravity
to start her death-defying leap
And he
a little charleychaplin man
who may or may not catch
her fair eternal form
spreadeagled in the empty air
of existence

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