ALLEN GINSBERG

You take Moloch
seriously like Blake
with a guru's vision
visiting in a vision
an alcoholic Irish wake
like Joyce in Gaelic
you hear the words
of Kaddish
and drink up for a Kiddish
with a Sabbath blessing
in your Jungian past
dressing in your nehru jacket
within a magical world
of Wichita Vortex Sutra
yet you cannot hack it,
with a sickly grandma
who speaks in a socialist
sectarian Yiddish
as your proletarian mother
has brought you up
and down with a utopian wish
straight from the asylum
tries to assuage Allen
her son, to be calm
yet they both eat from
a psychedelic dish
then your mama
makes you eat Gefilte fish,
as you head for Naropa
to visit your master Trungpa
turning to Buddha
away from Judaism
and Christian Europa
there is always Moloch
along the hallways
as you bring your sitar
and sing chants
with the Beats,
I once asked you
if you want to be messiah
and kiss David Cassidy's feet
whom Sal Mineo had a crush on
but could not score,
but life is as a sweet cheat
gone into a whoring madness
that is defiantly fowl,
your sensitive father
had a poet's daring originality
above all with a rabbis's soul
and your mother is political
is sadly with gall,
mostly out of it,
you weep for Aunt Rose too
caught in the Red Scare
as you compose "Howl."