As a dog would have it, my first acquaintance with Allen Ginsberg’s poetry, began with ‘Howl’. There he was, the voice of rage and protest that defined the beat generation. A wallpaper featuring its raw opening lines adorned my bedroom wall. (Till Chimera, the rescue cat, shred it.)
I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness,
starving hysterical naked,
dragging themselves through the negro streets at dawn looking for an angry fix…
All these years later, I discovered another gem from Ginsberg.
The poem ‘Song’ is unpretentiously beautiful. A lyrical ode to love, one that ponders and prods with a surgeon’s dexterity — the rhymes, reasons and remains of love.
See Also: What’s the most beautiful thing you’ve read?
The weight of the world
is love.
Under the burden
of solitude,
under the burden
of dissatisfaction
the weight,
the weight we carry
is love.
Who can deny?
In dreams
it touches
the body,
in thought
constructs
a miracle,
in imagination
anguishes
till born
in human–
looks out of the heart
burning with purity–
for the burden of life
is love,
but we carry the weight
wearily,
and so must rest
in the arms of love
at last,
must rest in the arms
of love.
No rest
without love,
no sleep
without dreams
of love–
be mad or chill
obsessed with angels
or machines,
the final wish
is love
–cannot be bitter,
cannot deny,
cannot withhold
if denied:
the weight is too heavy
–must give
for no return
as thought
is given
in solitude
in all the excellence
of its excess.
The warm bodies
shine together
in the darkness,
the hand moves
to the center
of the flesh,
the skin trembles
in happiness
and the soul comes
joyful to the eye–
yes, yes,
that’s what
I wanted,
I always wanted,
I always wanted,
to return
to the body
where I was born.
Beautiful, isn’t it?
And if you dare to venture into the intimidating emptiness, you’d know that the weight of the world is love, indeed. Complement this with Bukowski’s drunken genius on how love and loss make the mightiest of men tremble. Then revisit Laurie Anderson’s Heart of a dog which flows like a lucid dream because sometimes memories, you just can’t sort.