Η Ανθολογία της Beat Poetry

[Nascentes morimur]

You will not be able to stay home, brother
You will not be able to plug in, turn on and cop out
You will not be able to lose yourself on skag
And skip out for beer during commercials, because
The revolution will not be televised
The revolution will not be televised
The revolution will not be brought to you
By Xerox in four parts without commercial interruptions
The revolution will not show you pictures of Nixon blowing a bugle
And leading a charge by John Mitchell, General Abrams, and Spiro Agnew
To eat hog maws confiscated from a Harlem sanctuary
The revolution will not be televised
The revolution will not be brought to you by the Schaefer Award Theatre
And will not star Natalie Woods and Steve McQueen or Bullwinkle and Julia
The revolution will not give your mouth sex appeal
The revolution will not get rid of the nubs
The revolution will not make you look five pounds thinner, because
The revolution will not be televised, brother
There will be no pictures of you and Willie Mae
Pushing that shopping cart down the block on the dead run
Or trying to slide that color TV into a stolen ambulance
NBC will not be able predict the winner
At 8:32 on report from twenty-nine districts
The revolution will not be televised
There will be no pictures of pigs shooting down brothers on the instant replay
There will be no pictures of pigs shooting down brothers on the instant replay
There will be no pictures of Whitney Young
Being run out of Harlem on a rail with a brand new process
There will be no slow motion or still lifes of Roy Wilkins
Strolling through Watts in a red, black, and green liberation jumpsuit
That he has been saving for just the proper occasion
Green Acres, Beverly Hillbillies, and Hooterville Junction
Will no longer be so damn relevant
And women will not care if Dick finally got down with Jane
On Search for Tomorrow
Because black people will be in the street looking for a brighter day
The revolution will not be televised
There will be no highlights on the eleven o'clock news
And no pictures of hairy armed women liberationists
And Jackie Onassis blowing her nose
The theme song will not be written by Jim Webb or Francis Scott Keys
Nor sung by Glen Campbell, Tom Jones, Johnny Cash
Engelbert Humperdinck, or The Rare Earth
The revolution will not be televised
The revolution will not be right back
After a message about a white tornado
White lightning, or white people
You will not have to worry about a dove in your bedroom
The tiger in your tank, or the giant in your toilet bowl
The revolution will not go better with Coke
The revolution will not fight germs that may cause bad breath
The revolution will put you in the driver's seat
The revolution will not be televised
Will not be televised
Will not be televised
Will not be televised
The revolution will be no re-run, brothers
The revolution will be live

Scott-Heron is essentially saying that freedom is not a spectator sport: you will not be able to sit at home and expect progress to come knocking, you will not see progress in the mainstream media, and you will not be able to rely on social or political leaders to give you your freedom. Instead, you will have to be strong, courageous, hopeful, and most importantly, educated, to finally earn your freedom from the racism running rampant amongst all of the institutions in the United States. It was as true in the 60s/70s as it is today: the revolution will not be televised.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gil_Scott-Heron

 

[parafernalia]

Do the Dead Know what Time It Is?​

By Kenneth Patchen

The old guy put down his beer.
Son, he said,
(and a girl came over to the table where we were:
asked us by Jack Christ to buy her a drink.)
Son, I am going to tell you something
The like of which nobody was ever told.
(and the girl said, I've got nothing on tonight;
how about you and me going to your place?)
I am going to tell you the story of my mother's
Meeting with God.
(and I whispered to the girl: I don't have a room,
but maybe...)
She walked up to where the top of the world is
And He came right up to her and said
So at last you've come home.
(but maybe what?
I thought I'd like to stay here and talk to you.)
My mother started to cry and God
Put His arms around her.
(about what?
Oh, just talk...we'll find something.)
She said it was like a fog coming over her face
And light was everywhere and a soft voice saying
You can stop crying now.
(what can we talk about that will take all night?
and I said that I didn't know.)

You can stop crying now.

 

[Nascentes morimur]

Pedro lives out of the Wilshire Hotel
He looks out a window without glass
The walls are made of cardboard, newspapers on his feet
And his father beats him 'cause he's too tired to beg
He's got nine brothers and sisters
They're brought up on their knees
It's hard to run when a coat hanger beats you on the thighs
Pedro dreams of being older and killing the old man
But that's a slim chance, he's going to the boulevard
He's gonna end up on the dirty boulevard
He's going out to the dirty boulevard
He's going down to the dirty boulevard
This room cost $2, 000 dollars a month
You can believe it, man, it's true
Somewhere a landlord's laughing 'til he wets his pants
No one dreams of being a doctor or a lawyer or anything
They dream of dealing on the dirty boulevard
"Give me your hungry, your tired, your poor, I'll piss on 'em"
That's what the statue of bigotry says
Your poor huddled masses, let's club 'em to death
And get it over with and just dump 'em on the boulevard
Get 'em out on the dirty boulevard
Going out to the dirty boulevard
They're going down on the dirty boulevard
Going out...
Outside it's a bright night, there's an opera at Lincoln Center
Movie stars arrive by limousine
The klieg lights shoot up over the skyline of Manhattan
But the lights are out on the mean streets
A small kid stands by the Lincoln Tunnel
He is selling plastic roses for a buck
The traffic's backed up to 39th street
The TV whores are calling the cops out for a suck
And back at the Wilshire, Pedro sits there dreaming
He's found a book on magic in a garbage can
He looks at the pictures and stares up at the cracked ceiling
"At the count of three, " he says, "I hope I can disappear"
And fly, fly away from this dirty boulevard
I want to fly from dirty boulevard
I wanna fly from dirty boulevard
I want to fly, fly, fly, fly from dirty boulevard
I wanna fly away
I wanna fly
Fly, fly away
I wanna fly
Fly, fly away
fly, fly away
(Fly, fly, fly away) fly away (I wanna fly away)
(Fly, fly, fly away) I wanna fly, I'm gonna fly away

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dirty_Blvd.

 

[Nascentes morimur]

You gentlemen who think you have a mission
To purge us of the seven deadly sins
Should first sort out the basic food position
Then start your preaching, that's where it begins
You lot, who preach restraint and watch your waist as well
Should learn, for once, the way the world is run
However much you twist, or whatever lies that you tell
Food is the first thing, morals follow on
So first make sure that those who are now starving get proper helpings,
when we all start carving What keeps mankind alive?
What keeps mankind alive?
The fact that millions are daily tortured, stifled, punished,
silenced and oppressed
Mankind can keep alive thanks to its brilliance in keeping its humanity repressed
And for once you must try not to shirk the facts
Mankind is kept alive
by bestial acts!



Written by: Original words by Bertolt Brecht
Translation by Ralph Manheim and John Willett

 

[Nascentes morimur]

 

[Nascentes morimur]

Defeat, my Defeat, my deathless courage,
You and I shall laugh together with the storm,
And together we shall dig graves for all that die in us,
And we shall stand in the sun with a will,
And we shall be dangerous.​

 

[Nascentes morimur]

In Vain - Jack Kerouac

The stars in the sky
In vain
The tragedy of Hamlet
In vain
The key in the lock
In vain
The sleeping mother
In vain
The lamp in the corner
In vain
The lamp in the corner unlit
In vain
Abraham Lincoln
In vain
The Aztec empire
In vain
The writing hand: in vain
(The shoetrees in the shoes
In vain
The windowshade string upon
the hand bible
In vain—
The glitter of the greenglass
ashtray
In vain
The bear in the woods
In vain
The Life of Buddha
In vain

Book of Sketches. Penguin Books, a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc, 2006.

 

[Nascentes morimur]

"It was as if that great rush of anger had washed me clean, emptied me of hope, and, gazing up at the dark sky spangled with its signs and stars, for the first time, the first, I laid my heart open to the benign indifference of the universe."
Albert Camus, The Stranger.

 

[Nascentes morimur]

Kids Who Die​

This is for the kids who die,
Black and white,
For kids will die certainly.
The old and rich will live on awhile,
As always,
Eating blood and gold,
Letting kids die.

Kids will die in the swamps of Mississippi
Organizing sharecroppers
Kids will die in the streets of Chicago
Organizing workers
Kids will die in the orange groves of California
Telling others to get together
Whites and Filipinos,
Negroes and Mexicans,
All kinds of kids will die
Who don't believe in lies, and bribes, and contentment
And a lousy peace.

Of course, the wise and the learned
Who pen editorials in the papers,
And the gentlemen with Dr. in front of their names
White and black,
Who make surveys and write books
Will live on weaving words to smother the kids who die,
And the sleazy courts,
And the bribe-reaching police,
And the blood-loving generals,
And the money-loving preachers
Will all raise their hands against the kids who die,
Beating them with laws and clubs and bayonets and bullets
To frighten the people—
For the kids who die are like iron in the blood of the people—
And the old and rich don't want the people
To taste the iron of the kids who die,
Don't want the people to get wise to their own power,
To believe an Angelo Herndon, or even get together

Listen, kids who die—
Maybe, now, there will be no monument for you
Except in our hearts
Maybe your bodies'll be lost in a swamp
Or a prison grave, or the potter's field,
Or the rivers where you're drowned like Leibknecht
But the day will come—
You are sure yourselves that it is coming—
When the marching feet of the masses
Will raise for you a living monument of love,
And joy, and laughter,
And black hands and white hands clasped as one,
And a song that reaches the sky—
The song of the life triumphant
Through the kids who die.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Langston_Hughes

 

[parafernalia]

 

[parafernalia]

«Ας πιούμε στην υγειά των τρελών, των απροσάρμοστων, των επαναστατών, των ταραχοποιών. Σε αυτούς που βλέπουν τα πράγματα διαφορετικά, που δεν τιμούν τους κανόνες, που δεν σέβονται την τάξη…Γιατί οι άνθρωποι που είναι αρκετά τρελοί για να πιστεύουν ότι μπορούν ν’ αλλάξουν τον κόσμο, είναι αυτοί που στο τέλος το κάνουν ».

Τζακ Κέρουακ​

 

[Nascentes morimur]

The reality of modern society is mass neurosis, repeatedly descending into outright insanity. Neuroses are not so much symptoms of illness as attempts as self-cure. The totalitarian movements of modern times are attempts of this kind. But human beings cannot cure themselves of being the kind of human being they have become – solitaries who remain alone even as they flee to the shelter of mass belonging.

—John Gray​

 

[Nascentes morimur]

Τι καθαρό βάθος
τι βαθιά απλότητα
να κάθεσαι ανάμεσα στα δέντρα
και ν’ ανασαίνεις μαζί τους
στην κελαρυστή δροσερή αύρα!

Και πώς μπορώ να πιστέψω αυτούς
που λερώνουν τον ουρανό με παραδείσους
και τη Γη με κόλαση!

Λοιπόν, ανθρώπινο γένος,
κομμάτι σου είμαι,
όπως κι ο γιος μου,

μα κανένας μας δεν θα πιστέψει
το μεγάλο θλιβερό σου ψέμα.

Γκρέγκορι Κόρσο Ανθρωπότητα​

* μετάφραση Γιώργου Μπουρλή

 

[Nascentes morimur]

Failing and Flying
BY JACK GILBERT

Everyone forgets that Icarus also flew.
It's the same when love comes to an end,
or the marriage fails and people say
they knew it was a mistake, that everybody
said it would never work. That she was
old enough to know better. But anything
worth doing is worth doing badly.
Like being there by that summer ocean
on the other side of the island while
love was fading out of her, the stars
burning so extravagantly those nights that
anyone could tell you they would never last.
Every morning she was asleep in my bed
like a visitation, the gentleness in her
like antelope standing in the dawn mist.
Each afternoon I watched her coming back
through the hot stony field after swimming,
the sea light behind her and the huge sky
on the other side of that. Listened to her
while we ate lunch. How can they say
the marriage failed? Like the people who
came back from Provence (when it was Provence)
and said it was pretty but the food was greasy.
I believe Icarus was not failing as he fell,
but just coming to the end of his triumph.

Jack Gilbert - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[Nascentes morimur]

History of the Airplane
by Lawrence Ferlinghetti

And the Wright brothers said they thought they had invented
something that could make peace on earth when their wonderful
flying machine took off at Kitty Hawk into the kingdom of birds
but the parliament of birds was freaked out by this man-made bird
and fled to heaven
And then the famous Spirit of Saint Louis took off eastward and
flew across the Big Pond with Lindy at the controls in his leather
helmet and goggles hoping to sight the doves of peace but he did not
even though he circled Versailles
And then the famous Flying Clipper took off in the opposite
direction and flew across the terrific Pacific but the pacific doves
were frighted by this strange amphibious bird and hid in the orient sky
And then the famous Flying Fortress took off bristling with guns
and testosterone to make the world safe for peace and capitalism
but the birds of peace were nowhere to be found before or after Hiroshima
And so then clever men built bigger and faster flying machines and
these great man-made birds with jet plumage flew higher than any
real birds and seemed about to fly into the sun and melt their wings
and like Icarus crash to earth
And the Wright brothers were long forgotten in the high-flying
bombers that now began to visit their blessings on various Third
Worlds all the while claiming they were searching for doves of
peace
And they kept flying and flying until they flew right into the 21st
century and then one fine day a Third World struck back and
stormed the great planes and flew them straight into the beating
heart of Skyscraper America where there were no aviaries and no
parliaments of doves and in a blinding flash America became a part
of the scorched earth of the world

And a wind of ashes blows across the land
And for one long moment in eternity
There is chaos and despair
And buried loves and voices
Cries and whispers
Fill the air
Everywhere

 

[Nascentes morimur]

We inherit nothing truly, but what our actions make us worthy of. This is the truth of the universe. We are born into this world with nothing, and we leave with nothing. But in between, we have the opportunity to make something of ourselves. We have the power to create a legacy, to leave behind something that will endure long after we are gone. It is up to us to make the most of that opportunity, to live our lives with purpose and passion. ~Gregory Corso​

 

[parafernalia]

Δεν δίνω σημασία στο τέλος του κόσμου. Έχει τελειώσει για μένα πολλές φορές και άρχισε πάλι το πρωί - Charles Bukowski

 

[Nascentes morimur]

"After all this kind of fanfare, and even more, I came to a point where I needed solitude and to just stop the machine of 'thinking' and 'enjoying' what they call 'living,' I just wanted to lie in the grass and look at the clouds...
No man should go through life without once experiencing healthy, even bored solitude in the wilderness, finding himself depending solely on himself and thereby learning his true and hidden strength.
Learning for instance, to eat when he's hungry and sleep when he's sleepy…
Thinking of the stars night after night I begin to realize "The stars are words" and all the innumerable worlds in the Milky Way are words, and so is this world too.
And I realize that no matter where I am, whether in a little room full of thought, or in this endless universe of stars and mountains, it's all in my mind…
Everything is perfect on the street again, the world is permeated with roses of happiness all the time, but none of us know it.
The happiness consists in realizing that it is all a great strange dream."

Jack Kerouac
Lonesome Traveler

 

[Nascentes morimur]

“The silence is so intense that you can hear your own blood roar in your ears but louder than that by far is the mysterious roar which I always identify with the roaring of the diamond wisdom, the mysterious roar of silence itself, which is a great Shhhh reminding you of something you've seemed to have forgotten in the stress of your days since birth.”

— Jack Kerouac

 

[parafernalia]

Δυο ποιήματα​

του Ηλία Πετρόπουλου

Καπνίζω
Καμιά φορά φουμάρω
μέχρι σαράντα τσιγάρα τη μέρα
Συχνά, όμως, το τσιγάρο μου καίει ανώφελα,
λησμονημένο στο τασάκι,
ενώ αναπολώ τις γυναίκες που αγάπησα..

sex shop
Πιθανότατα,
βρισκόμαστε μπρος σε μια νέα Αναγέννηση
Το sex shop αποβαίνει πιο αναγκαίο και πιο απαραίτητο
από το μανάβικο της γειτονιάς

Οι ερωτικές αφίσες στους τοίχους του Παρισιού
είναι- κι αναστενάζουν
Κόβουμε το ψωμί σε μικρά κομματάκια,
για να γαμήσουμε όλοι

Μα, κανενός είδους Κομουνισμός
δεν θα καταφέρει να μειώσει την ερωτική ανισότητα:
ο καμπούρης του χωριού
δεν θα απολαύσει την ωραία γυναίκα

Γλιστράμε, κι όλο γλιστράμε απαλά, προς μια νέα ερωτική θρησκεία.
Όταν είσαι μες στον λαβύρινθο δεν βλέπεις τον λαβύρινθο.
Ω, Σατανά Τρισμέγιστε,
γύρνα πάλι να βοηθήσεις τους ανθρώπους!