Remembering Nagasaki

Nagasaki Days

by Allen Ginsberg
I -- A Pleasant Afternoon
  for Michael Brownstein and Dick Gallup

One day 3 poets and 60 ears sat under a green-striped Chau-
        tauqua tent in Aurora
listening to Black spirituals, tapping their feet, appreciating
        words singing by in mountain winds
on a pleasant sunny day of rest -- the wild wind blew thru
        blue Heavens
filled with fluffy clouds stretched from Central City to Rocky
        Flats, Plutonium sizzled in its secret bed,
hot dogs sizzled in the Lion's Club lunchwagon microwave
        mouth, orangeade bubbled over in waxen cups
Traffic moved along Colefax, meditators silent in the Diamond
        Castle shrine-room at Boulder followed the breath going
        out of their nostrils,
Nobody could remember anything, spirits flew out of mouths
        & noses, out of the sky, across Colorado plains & the
        tent flapped happily open spacious & didn't fall down.
      
                                                        June 18, 1978


II -- Peace Protest


Cumulus clouds float across blue sky
        over the white-walled Rockwell Corporation factory
                                        -- am I going to stop that?
                                
Rocky Mountains rising behind us
        Denver shining in morning light
-- Led away from the crowd by police and photographers

                                
Middleaged Ginsberg and Ellsberg taken down the road
        to the greyhaired Sheriff's van --
But what about Einstein? What about Einstein? Hey, Einstein
                                Come back!


III -- Golden Courthouse


Waiting for the Judge, breathing silent
        Prisoners, witnesses, Police --
the stenographer yawns into her palms.


                                        August 9, 1978


IV -- Everybody's Fantasy


I walked outside & the bomb'd
        dropped lots of plutonium
        all over the Lower East Side
There weren't any buildings left just
        iron skeletons
groceries burned, potholes open to
        stinking sewer waters


There were people starving and crawling
        across the desert
the Martian UFOs with blue
        Light destroyer rays
passed over and dried up all the
        waters


Charred Amazon palmtrees for
        hundreds of miles on both sides
        of the river


                                August 10, 1978


V -- Waiting Room at the Rocky Flats Plutonium Plant


"Give us the weapons we need to protect ourselves!"
        the bareheaded guard lifts his flyswatter above the desk
                                                -- whap!


                                *


A green-letter'd shield on the pressboard wall!
        "Life is fragile.  Handle with care" --
My Goodness! here's where they make the nuclear bomb
                                  triggers.


                                        August 17, 1978


VI -- Numbers in Red Notebook


2,000,000 killed in Vietnam
13,000,000 refugees in Indochina 1972
200,000,000 years for the Galaxy to revolve on its core
24,000 the Babylonian Great Year
24,000 half life of plutonium
2,000 the most I ever got for a poetry reading
80,000 dolphins killed in the dragnet
4,000,000,000 years earth been born
                                                Summer 1978

You can listen to Ginsberg reading this last section as it was one of the songs in the work Hydrogen Jukebox by Phillip Glass.

Remembering the many killed by nuclear bombs and accidents, sending peace and love to all.