Don't you feel like this sometimes? You can do anything. The morning is fresh, you are rested and the world is yours. This unknown-to-me action figure was left behind in clothing after the last grandson visit. I will return him the next time I see the boys (soon, I hope) and I will probably miss him. He is perched above the dryer-watching over daily laundry rituals.He soars with daring, confidence and impunity to fight or defend... never looking back or down.
I hope he is not evil.
The day is just begun- fly into it, one and all.
1 comment:
TO AUNT ROSE
Aunt Rose-now-might I see you
with your thin face and buck tooth smile and pain
of rheumatism-and a long black heavy shoe
for your bony left leg
limping down the long hall in Newark on the running carpet
past the black grand piano
in the day room
where the parties were and I sang Spanish loyalist songs
in a high squeaky voice
(hysterical) the committee listening while you limped around the room
collected the money-
Aunt Honey, Uncle Sam, a stranger with a cloth arm
in his pocket
and huge young bald head
of Abraham Lincoln Brigade
-your long sad face
your tears of sexual frustration
(what smothered sobs and bony hips
under the pillows of Osborne Terrace)
-the time I stood on the toilet seat naked
and you powdered my thighs with calamine
against the poison ivy-my tender
and shamed first black curled hairs what were you thinking in secret heart then
knowing me a man already-
and I an ignorant girl of family silence on the thin pedestal
of my legs in the bathroom-Museum of Newark.
Aunt Rose
Hitler is dead, Hitler is in Eternity; Hitler is with
Tamburlane and Emily Bronte
Though I see you walking still, a ghost on Osborne Terrace
down the long dark hall to the front door limping a little with a pinched smile
in what must have been a silken
flower dress
welcoming my father, the Poet, on his visit to Newark
-see you arriving in the living room
dancing on your crippled leg and clapping hands his book
had been accepted by Liveright
Hitler is dead and Liveright's gone out of business
The Attic of the Past and Everlasting Minute are out of print
Uncle Harry sold his last silk stocking Claire quit interpretive dancing school
Buba sits a wrinkled monument in Old
Ladies Home blinking at new babies
last time I saw you was the hospital
pale skull protruding under ashen skin
blue veined unconscious girl
in an oxygen tent the war in Spain has ended long ago
Aunt Rose
Copyright © the Estate of Allen Ginsberg
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