City Lights

Pocket Poets
Anthology
Edited by
Lawrence Ferlinghetti

CITY LIGHTS BOOKS

San Francisco
CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION  /  xv
NO. 1 PICTURES OF THE GONE WORLD
Lawrence Ferlinghetti
#21 [Heaven was only half as far]   /   1
#25 [The world is a beautiful place]   /   2
#26 [Reading Yeats I do not think]   /   5

NO. 2 THIRTY SPANISH POEMS OF LOVE AND

EXILE
Edited and Translated by Kenneth Rexroth
Homecoming of Love Amongst Illustrious Ruins by Rafael
Alberti  /  7
Madrigal by Nicolas Guillén  /  9
Poem [I remember you as you were] by Pablo
Neruda  /  10
The Weeping by Federico García Lorca  /  11
Meditation For This Day by Antonio Machado  /  12

NO. 3 POEMS OF HUMOR & PROTEST

Kenneth Patchen
The State of the Nation   /   13
Pastoral  /  14
Street Corner College  /  15
The Body Beside the Ties   /   16
The Origin of Baseball  /  17
NO. 4 HOWL AND OTHER POEMS
Allen Ginsberg
From Howl, Part II [What sphinx of cement]   /   18
Footnote to Howl  /  20

NO. 5 TRUE MINDS

Marie Ponsot
Analogue  /  22
A La Une  /  23
Matins and Lauds  /  24
Multipara: Gravida 5  /  25
Rockefeller the Center  /  26

NO. 6 HERE AND NOW

Denise Levertov
The Gypsy’s Window  /  27
People At Night  /  28

NO. 7 KORA IN HELL: IMPROVISATIONS

William Carlos Williams
Kora in Hell, selections  /  30

NO. 8 GASOLINE
Gregory Corso
Ode to Coit Tower  /  34

NO. 9 PAROLES
Jacques Prévert
Translated by Lawrence Ferlinghetti
Pater Noster  /  38
Familial  /  40
The Last Supper  /  41
Quartier Libre  /  42
The Discourse on Peace  /  43

NO. 10 SELECTED POEMS

Robert Duncan
Among My Friends  /  44
Sleep Is A Deep and Many Voiced Flood   /   45
The Drinking Fountain  /  46

NO. 11 NEW YOUNG GERMAN POETS

Edited and Translated by Jerome Rothenberg
A Death Fugue by Paul Celan  /  47
Homesick by Helmut Heissenbüttel  /  49
‘Held Back, Like A Bow Drawn Tight’ by Walter
Höllerer  /  50
In The Woods by Heinz Piontek  /  51
Gasco, or The Toad by Günter Grass  /  53
hôtel fraternité by Hans Magnus Enzensberger  /  54

NO. 12 ANTI-POEMS
Nicanor Parra
Translated by Jorge Elliott
Vices of the Modern World   /   55

NO. 13 THE LOVE POEMS OF KENNETH

PATCHEN
Kenneth Patchen
‘While the Sun Still Spends His Fabulous Money’   /   60
‘O Now the Drenched Land Wakes’   /   61
In Judgment of the Leaf   /   62
The Character of Love Seen As a Search For the
Lost  /  63
‘The Sea is Awash With Roses’   /   65
NO. 14 KADDISH AND OTHER POEMS
Allen Ginsberg
From Kaddish, Part IV [O mother]   /   66
To Aunt Rose  /  69

NO. 15 SLOW NEWSREEL OF MAN RIDING

TRAIN
Robert Nichols
From Get-Away  /  72

NO. 16 RED CATS

Edited and Translated by Anselm Hollo
The Big Fire at the Architectural College by Andrei
Voznesensky  /  77
From A Talk by Yevgeny Yevtushenko  /  80
The New Heart by Semyon Kirsanov  /  81

NO. 17 SELECTED POEMS OF MALCOLM

LOWRY
Malcolm Lowry
Edited by Earle Birney
Iron Cities  /  82
The Volcano is Dark  /  83
Death of a Oaxaquenian  /  84
Joseph Conrad  /  85
After Publication of Under the Volcano  /  86

NO. 18 REALITY SANDWICHES

Allen Ginsberg
My Alba  /  87
From Siesta in Xbalba  /  89
‘Back On Times Square, Dreaming of Times Square’   /   92
NO. 19 LUNCH POEMS
Frank O’Hara
Personal Poem  /  94
Cornkind  /  96
Ave Maria  /  98
Poem [Lana Turner has collapsed!]   /   100

NO. 20 SELECTED POEMS

Philip Lamantia
A Winter Day  /  101
Voice of Earth Mediums  /  103

NO. 21 GOLDEN SARDINE

Bob Kaufman
Unhistorical Events  /  105
Heavy Water Blues  /  107

NO. 22 POEMS TO FERNANDO

Janine Pommy-Vega
[Ah certainty of love in the hand]   /   110
[Here before the sunrise blue]   /   111

NO. 23 PLANET NEWS

Allen Ginsberg
This Form of Life Needs Sex   /   112
Why is God Love, Jack?   /   116

NO. 24 PANIC GRASS

Charles Upton
Part I [As I take up warfare]   /   118
Part II [As a dying man gathers up]   /   119
NO. 25 HUNK OF SKIN
Pablo Picasso
Translated by Paul Blackburn
9.1.59: II [then the mailman came]   /   122
9.1.59: VI [Every silver lining]   /   123

NO. 26 THE TEETH-MOTHER NAKED AT LAST

Robert Bly
Part I [Massive engines lift beautifully]   /   125

NO. 27 REVOLUTIONARY LETTERS ETC

Diane di Prima
April Fool Birthday Poem for Grandpa   /   128
Revolutionary Letter #1 [I have just realized that the stakes
are myself]  /  130

NO. 28 SCATTERED POEMS

Jack Kerouac
Edited by Ann Charters
Hymn  /  131
Poem [I demand that the human race]   /   133
How to Meditate  /  134

NO. 29 DOGALYPSE: SAN FRANCISCO POETRY

READING
Andrei Voznesensky
Dogalypse  /  135

NO. 30 THE FALL OF AMERICA: POEMS OF

THESE STATES
Allen Ginsberg
A Vow  /  139
Elegy for Neal Cassady  /  141
NO. 31 A DAISY IN THE MEMORY OF A SHARK
Pete Winslow
[O god of spring forgive me]   /   146
[I blink and half my life is over]   /   148

NO. 32 HOTEL NIRVANA

Harold Norse
Picasso Visits Braque  /  150
The Business of Poetry  /  152
Believing in the Absurd  /  153
I Would Not Recommend Love   /   155

NO. 33 FAST SPEAKING WOMAN & OTHER

CHANTS
Anne Waldman
From Fast Speaking Woman  /  156

NO. 34 LYRIPOL
Jack Hirschman
Transfiguration  /  160
Headlands  /  162
X L E B  /  167

NO. 35 MIND BREATHS

Allen Ginsberg
We Rise On Sun Beams and Fall in the Night   /   169
From Don’t Grow Old, Part V. Father Death Blues   /   170
Haunting Poe’s Baltimore  /  172

NO. 36 POEMS
Stefan Brecht
From Sex [Here then is the life-giving activity]   /   175
Thanksgiving (1974)  /  176
Silence  /  177
Silence, 2  /  178

NO. 37 CLEAN ASSHOLE POEMS & SMILING

VEGETABLE SONGS
Peter Orlovsky
Snail Poem  /  180
Poems From Subway to Work   /   181
Collaboration: Letter to Charlie Chaplin [with Allen
Ginsberg]  /  183

NO. 38 FACTORY
Antler
From Part I [The machines waited for me.]   /   186
From Part XIII [Ungag our souls!]   /   188

NO. 39 BECOMING VISIBLE

Philip Lamantia
The Romantic Movement  /  191
Time Traveler’s Potlatch  /  193

NO. 40 PLUTONIAN ODE

Allen Ginsberg
Part I [What new element before us unborn in
nature?]  /  195

NO. 41 ROMAN POEMS

Pier Paolo Pasolini
Translated by Lawrence Ferlinghetti and Francesca
Valente
Roman Evening  /  200
Sex, Consolation For Misery  /  203
NO. 42 NINE DUTCH POETS
Edited by Scott Rollins
(((((Hollanditis))))) by Simon Vinkenoog  /  205

NO. 43 FROM NICARAGUA WITH LOVE: PO-

EMS
Ernesto Cardenal
Translated by Jonathan Cohen
Room 5600  /  211

NO. 44 KISSES FROM ANOTHER DREAM

Antonio Porta
Translated by Anthony Molino
[The age of unhappiness has arrived, or is it]   /   218
[I’m walking out on Rome]   /   220

NO. 45 ANIMATIONS
Adam Cornford
The Outer Limits  /  223

NO. 46 ADVENTURES ON THE ISLE OF ADO-

LESCENCE
La Loca
Why I Choose Black Men For My Lovers   /   226

NO. 47 LISTEN! EARLY POEMS

Vladimir Mayakovsky
Translated by Maria Enzensberger
Listen!  /  233
NO. 48 POMES ALL SIZES
Jack Kerouac
Mexican Loneliness  /  235
Poem [Anyway the time has come]   /   237
Flies  /  239
Poem [I could become a great grinning host]   /   240

NO. 49 RIVERBED OF MEMORY

Daisy Zamora
Translated by Barbara Paschke
Downpour  /  241
A Report on the Protest in Front of the United States
Embassy by the Pino Grande Movement  /  243

NO. 50 ANGEL IN THE DELUGE

Rosario Murillo
Translated by Alejandro Murguía
Angel in the Deluge  /  245
Conversation in Front of a Helicopter   /   247

NO. 51 THE SCRIPTURE OF THE GOLDEN ETER-

NITY
Jack Kerouac
#1–18  /  249

NO. 52 DAWN OF THE SENSES

Alberto Blanco
Edited by Juvenal Acosta
Music in the Age of Iron   /   255
Poem Seen in a Motel Fan   /   258
NO. 53 SAVE TWILIGHT
Julio Cortázar
To Be Read in the Interrogative   /   260
A Love Letter  /  261
The Hero  /  262

NO. 54 ORPHIC SONGS

Dino Campana
The Chimera  /  264
Journey to Montevideo  /  266
In the Thundering Twilight  /  269

NO. 55 FRONT LINES

Jack Hirschman
Ikon  /  271
The Unnameable  /  274

NO. 56 NINE ALEXANDRIAS

Semezdin Mehmedinovic
Nine Alexandrias  /  276
Pound  /  277
East and West  /  278
A Door Upright in the Wind   /   279

NO. 57 THE LANGUAGE OF SAXOPHONES

Kamau Daáood
World Music  /  280
Deep River in Her Voice   /   282

NO. 58 STATE OF EXILE

Cristina Peri Rossi
First Journey  /  285
Midnight, Barcelona Metro  /  286
NO. 59 TAU
Philip Lamantia
from Going Forth by Day   /   287
The Owl  /  290

NO. 60 WHEN I WAS A POET

David Meltzer
When I Was a Poet   /   292
California Dreamin  /  302
All the Saying Said  /  305
INTRODUCTION

Even though some say that an avant-garde in literature

no longer exists, the smaller independent publisher is
itself still a true avant-garde, its place still out there,
scouting the unknown.
And as long as there is poetry, there will be an un-
known, as long as there is an unknown there will be
poetry. The function of the independent press(besides
being essentially dissident) is still to discover, to find the
new voices and give voice to them—and then let the
big publishers have at them—which is what has hap-
pened in our case—many authors we first printed now
being published by the biggest houses in the world.
Still, what one scout on some imagined frontier
may discover and choose as a way forward may turn
out to be merely a cowpath leading back to the barn or
a false lead trailing off into the woods. Choosing a ret-
rospective of sixty years of City Lights Pocket Poets—
sixty volumes—is a critical exercise at every step test-
ing how right or how important (or how trivial) the
editor’s choices were. In general I would say the list
suffers not from what or who is included but from who
is left out, either by ignorance, inattention, ill-timing
or bad luck (when other publishers beat us to it).
From the beginning the aim was to publish across
the board, avoiding the provincial and the academic,
and not publishing (that pitfall of the little press) just
‘our gang.’ I had in mind rather an international, dis-

xv
sident, insurgent ferment. What has proved most fasci-
nating are the continuing cross-currents and cross-fer-
tilizations between poets widely separated by language
or geography, from France to Germany to Italy to
America North and South, East and West, coalescing in
a truly supra-national poetic voice.
Thus within these covers, Ginsberg meets his al-
most exact contemporary Pier Paolo Pasolini, the
Chilean Nicanor Parra ex-changes caustic insights
with French Resistance poet Jacques Prévert, Catho-
lic Buddhist Kerouac meets Catholic anarchist Ken-
neth Rexroth, Diane di Prima and Anne Waldman join
revolutionary voices with Daisy Zamora and Rosario
Murillo, Frank O’Hara encounters the son of Bertolt
Brecht, Robert Duncan and Philip Lamantia exchange
passionate eruditions, Kenneth Patchen and Robert Bly
cry out against a murderous world, Gregory Corso and
Peter Orlovsky swap wise and loony street poetry, and
Mayakovsky meets the Red Cats, while uneasy bed-
fellows Yevtushenko and Voznesensky recognize their
common enemy. . . .

So may our little cultural exchange program continue

into the 21st century in a world without walls in which
poetry is still the best news.
— lawrence ferlinghetti

xvi
Lawrence Ferlinghetti
21

Heaven

was only half as far that night

at the poetry recital

listening to the burnt phrases

when I heard the poet have

a rhyming erection

then look away with a

lost look

‘Every animal’ he said at last

‘After intercourse is sad’

But the back-row lovers

looked oblivious

and glad

1
Lawrence Ferlinghetti
25

The world is a beautiful place

to be born into
if you don’t mind happiness
not always being
so very much fun
if you don’t mind a touch of hell
now and then
just when everything is fine
because even in heaven
they don’t sing
all the time
The world is a beautiful place
to be born into
if you don’t mind some people dying
all the time
or maybe only starving
some of the time
which isn’t half so bad
if it isn’t you

2
Oh the world is a beautiful place
to be born into
if you don’t much mind
a few dead minds
in the higher places
or a bomb or two
now and then
in your upturned faces
or such other improprieties
as our Name Brand society
is prey to
with its men of distinction
and its men of extinction
and its priests
and other patrolmen

and its various segregations

and congressional investigations 
and other constipations
that our fool flesh 
is heir to

3
 Yes the world is the best place of all
for a lot of such things as
making the fun scene
and making the love scene
and making the sad scene
and singing low songs and having inspirations
and walking around
looking at everything
and smelling flowers
and goosing statues
and even thinking
and kissing people and
making babies and wearing pants
and waving hats and
dancing
and going swimming in rivers
on picnics
in the middle of the summer
and just generally
‘living it up’

Yes
but then right in the middle of it
comes the smiling

mortician

4
Lawrence Ferlinghetti
26

Reading Yeats I do not think

of Ireland
but of midsummer New York
and of myself back then
reading that copy I found
on the Thirdavenue El

the El
with its flyhung fans
and its signs reading
SPITTING IS FORBIDDEN

the El
careening thru its thirdstory world
with its thirdstory people
in their thirdstory doors
looking as if they had never heard 
of the ground

an old dame
watering her plant
or a joker in a straw

5
 putting a stickpin in his peppermint tie
and looking just like he had nowhere to go
but coneyisland

or an undershirted guy
rocking in his rocker
watching the El pass by
as if he expected it to be different
each time

Reading Yeats I do not think

of Arcady
and of its woods which Yeats thought dead
I think instead
of all the gone faces
getting off at midtown places
with their hats and their jobs
and of that lost book I had
with its blue cover and its white inside
where a pencilhand had written 
HORSEMAN, PASS BY!

6
Rafael Alberti
HOMECOMING OF LOVE AMONGST ILLUSTRIOUS RUINS

The calcined stones come back.

The fallen temples come back,
The bursted whore houses, the green courtyards
Where the smile of Priapus
Keeps warm the memory of fountains.

My love, let us go along the vanished streets,

Across the bright geometry which still points
To mysterious love and hidden
Pleasures, still so sweet in the night.

Here is the house of the goddess. In the blue

Sanctuary you can still smell the perfume
Of sea foam and jasmine and
Carnations salty with her flesh.

The phallic symbol, jolly as ever,

Riots in the thick foliage — stretched out
On the happy pan of the balance
Which offers it to love. It is heavier
Than all the fruits of the earth.
Aphrodite smiles in the shadows
As she feels the sea throb in her buttocks.

7
O ancient brightness! O far off light!
Naked light, love, shine on us always.
And when the day comes when we are no more than stones,
After we too, my love, are only ruins,
Let us lie like these stones singing in the sun,
Leading others to love along our vanished ways.

kenneth rexroth

8
Nicolas Guillén
MADRIGAL

Your womb is smarter than your head,

And as smart as your bottom.
See—
The fierce black grace
Of your naked body.

You are the symbol of the forest,

With your red necklaces,
Your bracelets of curving gold,
And the dark alligator
Swimming in the Zambezi of your eyes.

kenneth rexroth

9
Pablo Neruda
POEM

I remember you as you were that last autumn—

Your grey beret, your calm heart,
And the flames of sunset wrestling in your eyes,
And the leaves falling into the waters of your soul.

You clung to my arm like a vine.

The leaves caught up your slow calm voice—
Vertiginous hearth where my heart blazes—
Sweet blue hyacinth twisting over my soul.

I can feel your eyes, voyaging away, distant as that autumn,

Grey beret, voice of a bird, heart of a huntress—
Where all my deep agony migrated,
Where my happy kisses fell like embers.

The skies from shipboard. Fields from the hills.

Your memory is of light, of smoke, of a still pool.
Deep in your eyes the twilights burned.
The dry leaves of autumn whirled in your soul.

kenneth rexroth

10
Federico García Lorca
THE WEEPING

I have shut my windows.

I do not want to hear the weeping.
But from behind the grey walls,
Nothing is heard but the weeping.

There are few angels that sing.

There are few dogs that bark.
A thousand violins fit in the palm of the hand.
But the weeping is an immense angel.
The weeping is an immense dog.
The weeping is an immense violin.
Tears strangle the wind.
Nothing is heard but the weeping.

kenneth rexroth

11
Antonio Machado
MEDITATION FOR THIS DAY

Facing the palm of fire

Which spreads from the departing sun
Throughout the silent evening—
In this garden of peace—
While flowery Valencia
Drinks the Guadalquiver—
Valencia of slender towers
In the young skies of Ausias March,
Your river changes to roses
At the touch of the sea.
I think of the war. War
Has swept like a tornado
Through the steppes of high Douro,
Through the plains of growing bread,
From fertile Estramadura
To the gardens of lemon trees,
From the grey skies of Asturias
To the marshes of light and salt.
I think that Spain has been sold out,
River by river, mountain by mountain, sea by sea.

kenneth rexroth

12
Kenneth Patchen
THE STATE OF THE NATION

Understand that they were sitting just inside the door

At a little table with two full beers and two empties.
There were a few dozen people moving around, killing
Time and getting tight because nothing meant anything
Anymore
Somebody looked at a girl and somebody said
Great things doing in Spain
But she didn’t even look up, not so much as half an eye.
Then Jack picked up his beer and Nellie her beer
And their legs ground together under the table.
Somebody looked at the clock and somebody said
Great things doing in Russia
A cop and two whores came in and he bought only two drinks
Because one of them had syphilis

No one knows just why it happened or whether

It would happen ever again on this fretful earth
But Jack picked up his beer again and Nellie her beer again
And, as though at signal, a little man hurried in,
Crossed to the bar and said Hello Steve to the barkeeper.

13
Kenneth Patchen
PASTORAL

The Dove walks with sticky feet

Upon the green crowns of the almond tree,
Its feathers smeared over with warmth
Like honey
That dips lazily down into the shadow . . .

Anyone standing in that orchard,

So filled with peace and sleep,
Would hardly have noticed the hill
Nearby
With its three strange wooden arms
Lifted above a throng of motionless people
—Above the helmets of Pilate’s soldiers
Flashing like silver teeth in the sun.

14