Poetic Divination

“An Asphodel” by Allen Ginsberg

O dear sweet rosy

unattainable desire

…how sad, no way

to change the mad

cultivated asphodel, the

visible reality…

and skin’s appalling

petals–how inspired

to be so Iying in the living

room drunk naked

and dreaming, in the absence

of electricity…

over and over eating the low root

of the asphodel,

gray fate…

rolling in generation

on the flowery couch

as on a bank in Arden–

my only rose tonite’s the treat

of my own nudity.

Ginsberg said “Poetry is the one place where people can speak their original human mind. It is the outlet for people to say in public what is known in private.”

Today is his birthday.