Reactions To "Howl"

Let me start with an apology. It has been far too long since my last post but life and now the gym has rather taken over my free time. After my last post, one of the PTs helped me figure out a few things and I feel a lot more comfortable.

Now onto the meat of things. I've recently been re-reading through the works of one of my favourite poets - Allen Ginsburg and more specifically, I've been parsing through possibly his most famous and influential piece "Howl". And naturally I got thinking and started experimenting with how I feel and seeing what certain lines inspired. And so these are my reactions:

1.

“...angelheaded hipsters burning for the ancient heavenly connection to the starry dynamo in the machinery of night...”

Here among plaid paladins seeking out some truth in twilight hours filled with exhaust fume, cigarette smoke and clamour of wind, of driven rain against pavement and brick wall Echoing alleyway kingdoms that we own for this - for clarity of purpose to be pursued along each side street and out to the wide vista of river stop. Just to breathe in the water breathe in the salt and the birdsong and the radio waves aching from so many car stereos as we, in our vanity, pour over each other’s bodies with wonder and inquisition as if searching for an answer to our loneliness in this moment.

2.

“...purgatoried their torsos night after night with dreams, with drugs, with waking nightmares, alcohol and cock and endless balls...”

Look across this concrete labyrinth and find us in its dead-ends; lying vertical against breezeblock beds while another man makes a home for himself inside us; while we make mediocrity feel like godhood for five minutes and then he leaves with a name he won’t remember and missing a twenty from his wallet then we - aimless wanderers - go in search of our own thrills to placehold for contentment, for meaning and feel those little voices subside for a cacophony of seconds as we drown ourselves in cheap whiskey, in needles and a stranger’s blunt while another man looks at us - in our tight jeans and half-open shirt with a snake splitting as it curves into a smile across their face when they walk with ill-gotten confidence, with purpose towards us and we sigh as we brace ourselves for more ascension through the temples of our bodies.

3.

“...who wandered around and around at midnight in the railroad yard wondering where to go, and went, leaving no broken hearts...”

Hear us howl at each lamplight hovering, flickering overhead in this amethyst dark - lament to the hearts we left behind borne away in sad sagging heave and engine grunt of locomotive each screech of sleeper and rail - a reminder of “what if?” weaknesses we dwelled on for hours and years before finally boarding the next train to a new fascination we obsess over and burn away in a match flame, call his name “Regrets of our evaporating youth” or some such thing in a notebook we keep next to a leaking pen in our jacket pocket.

4.

“who broke down crying in white gymnasiums naked and trembling before the machinery of other skeletons...

who let themselves be fucked in the ass by saintly motorcyclists, and screamed with joy, who blew and were blown by those human seraphim, the sailors, caresses of Atlantic and Caribbean love...”

 

And we - broken, bastard boys - all cried together in our joys and losses and deep loves and shameless flirtations with the idea of taking another boy home only to find ourselves inconsolable at the act - to know we could never be loved like the girls are loved by the boys who we so desperately wanted so we became something else - became them, became caricature, became walking dadaism and bold-browed nihilists with placards and black leather harnesses strutting down each boulevard as if the cities paved a runway for us and only us to work learning to lose ourselves within the selves we use for spectacle - living as Kafka intended - rejoice in the feel of other men around us, inside us long held the secrets of other boys in our mouth and now, come spilling out in drunken stories and salt as we learn to spit them back out into the spotlight of another streetlamp - our stage, our sexual liaisons laid bare before the world to know you like they know me - delinquent and desperate to taste.