POEM
τεθνάκην δ’ ολίγω ’πιδεύης φαίνομ’ αλαία
Red cheeked boyfriends tenderly kiss me sweet mouthed
under Boulder coverlets winter springtime
hug me naked laughing & telling girl friends
gossip till autumn
Aging love escapes with his Childish body
Monday one man visited sleeping big cocked
older mustached crooked-mouthed not the same teen-
ager I sucked off
This kid comes on Thursdays with happy hard ons
long nights talking heart to heart reading verses
fucking hours he comes in me happy but I
can’t get it in him
Cherub, thin-legged Southern boy once slept over
singing blues and drinking till he got horny
Wednesday night he gave me his ass I screwed him
good luck he was drunk
Blond curl’d clear eyed gardener passing thru town
teaching digging earth in the ancient One Straw
method lay back stomach bare that night blew me
I blew him and came
Winter dance Naropa a barefoot wild kid
jumped up grabbed me laughed at me took my hand and
ran out saying Meet you at midnight your house
Woke me up naked
Midnight crawled in bed with me breathed in my ear
kissed my eyelids mouth on his cock it was soft
“Doesn’t do nothing for me,” turned on belly
Came in behind him
Future youth I never may touch any more
Hark these Sapphics lipped by my hollow spirit
everlasting tenderness breathed in these vowels
sighing for love still
Song your cadence formed while on May night’s full moon
yellow onions tulips in fresh rain pale grass
iris pea pods radishes grew as this verse
blossomed in dawn light
Measure forever his face eighteen years old
green eyes blond hair muscular gold soft skin whose
god like boy’s voice mocked me once three decades past
Come here and screw me
Breast struck scared to look in his eyes blood pulsing
my ears mouth dry tongue never moved ribs shook a
trembling fire ran down from my heart to my thighs
Love-sick to this day
Heavy limbed I sat in a chair and watched him
sleep naked all night afraid to kiss his mouth
tender dying waited for sun rise years a-
go in Manhattan
Boulder, May 17—June 1, 1980
Poem on pages 324-325 from Collected Poems 1947-1980 by Allen Ginsberg. Copyright © 1984 by Allen Ginsberg. Used by permission of HarperCollins Publishers.
Source: Selected Poems, 1947-1995 (2001)
