'Howl' (The Poem And Reflections) Poem by Jim Boone

By Allen Ginsberg that defined the ‘Beat Generation'

Lock up a poet in an ‘asylum' and poetry will happen
Ginsberg "saw the best minds of (his) generation
Destroyed by madness, looking for an angry fix"

I saw the best minds of my generation shot - killed
For political / deranged treasons of unsound minds.

Allen looked into a "supernatural darkness floating
Across the tops of cities contemplating jazz"

I looked beyond the limits of my home town
Away from the quiet abuse of the ‘sissy-boy' tag
Far from the institutions of lower learning
Into the US Army for total male acceptance
New York, New York to meet ‘You' at the Fair in 1964
At a time of city government decision to ‘hide those people
From the tourists, ' so to ‘evolve' I had to beat it back
To Texas, take off my ‘bible belt, ' survive a suicide attempt
And make tracks to Houston where Father Terrill
told me I would ‘find many others like' me.

Ginsberg "Howl"ed about New Yorkers "cowered in
Unshaven rooms in underwear, burning their money
In wastebaskets and listening to the Terror
Through the wall, who got busted in their
Pubic beards returning through Laredo
With a belt of marijuana for New York
Who ate fire in paint hotels
Or drank turpentine in Paradise Alley death
Or purgatoried their torsos night after night."

I joined that ‘party' in Houston in an ‘Old Plantation'
Or decked out at the ‘Galleon' for later strip one-on-one
Where we danced, schmoozed and cruised to the music
Went to the Galveston beaches and got sweatier
As we danced on the flashing d.cks at the Kon-Tiki
High on pot, magic mushrooms and life: Unleashed
By the ‘Sexual Revolution' and ‘Woodstock'
Disobedient because of the shooters and bashers.

Ginsberg "Howl"s on about those done-in ‘minds'
‘Who jumped into limousines with the Chinaman of
Oklahoma on the impulse of winter midnight streetlight
Small town rain, who lounged hungry and lonesome
Through Houston seeking jazz or sex or soup
And following the brilliant Spaniard to converse
About America and Eternity, who disappeared
Into the volcanoes of Mexico leaving behind
Nothing but the shadows of dungarees
And the lava and ash of poetry"

Our thought processes were put on ‘hold-on'
By dictations of sexual ballyhoo afterhours
From discoing, area motor cruising, t-room tangos
Also known as making the scene and
Too damn good(!) to be mean.

Allen kept tapping those historic typewriter keys
And "Howl"ing about blown "minds who created
Great suicidal dramas on the apartment cliff-banks
Of the Hudson under the wartime blue floodlights
Of the moon and their heads shall be crowned
With laurel in oblivion........"

I kept doing my dead-level best to expire
To find more than I could take
Somewhere between sundown and eternity.

In the late 60's and in the 70's, mayhem choked drama
In its dust as Vietnam went on and on and
Young life - of deceased and survivor ended.

The "Howl"ing minds "Journeyed to Denver
Died in Denver, came back to Denver
And waited in vain... for heroes
Who fell on their knees in hopeless
Cathedrals, praying for each others' salvation
Who retired to Mexico to cultivate a habit
Or Rocky Mount to tender Buddha or Tangiers
To boys or Southern Pacific to the black locomotive
Or Harvard; to Woodlawn to the daisy-chain or grave".

A decade after Allen Ginsberg let out his "Howl"
The daisy-chainers were glorious in youthful skin
Future ‘tacky' in long hair, equipment-spotlighting
Bellbottoms,501's and sensually soft 2nd skin shirts
As the Sexual Revolution became more about SEX
And less about war - more about Rights and
Learning to dodge the bullets of ‘wingers'
Who couldn't get IT off the ground.

Allen Ginsberg dedicated his "Howl" in 1955
(The year I graduated from old Boyd High in McKinney)
Dedicated it to Carl Solomon whom he met
In Rockland in an asylum "Carl Solomon! I'm with you
In Rockland where you're madder than I am
Where you laugh at the invisible humor
Where the faculties of the skull
No longer admit the worms of the senses
Where you scream in a straightjacket
That you're losing the game of the actual
Ping-pong of the abyss"

"I'm with you in Rockland where you bang
On the catatonic piano the soul is
Innocent and immortal & it should never
Die ungodly in an armed madhouse
Where fifty more shocks will never
Return your soul to its body again
From its pilgrimage to a cross in the void."

I believed nothing that "they" said
Everything that I wove into a tapestry
Of words and actions; witnessed in every day
Musings of the senses; bowing down to Eros
Dropping to my knees in churches and the darkness
For whispers from side to side and for nutrition.

Allen was with Carl Solomon in Rockland
Where "In my dreams you walk dripping from a
Sea-journey on the highway across America
In tears to the door of my cottage in the Western night"

I am with all the dearly-departed AIDS ‘victims'
Whose destiny it was to make a resounding statement
To future generations and present-day bigotry
"You people" - "Those people" are mindless tags
Put forth by a mental stillness that shouts
Out "No people are created equal! In God
we do not trust, only in what ‘they'
Interpret the Masters words to mean."

The ‘good people' do not want to hear
About the ‘perverts' who were mounted
"by saintly motorcyclists, and screamed
With joy - who ball.d in the morning
In the evening in rose gardens and
The grass of public parks and cemeteries
Scattering their semen freely to
Whomever, come what may, who
Hiccupped endlessly trying to giggle
But wound up with a sob behind
A partition in a Turkish Bath
When the blond & naked angel
Came to pierce them with a sword."

Then a bunch of drag queens and gay bar patrons
Fought back against police bullying at Stone Wall
In the New York Village in 1969 and once again
A generation hoisted the banner for =quality
And the ‘battles' for Human Rights continue
In "One nation, under God, with liberty and
Justice for all." FOR ALL people! For all.

"Amazing Grace... How sweet the sound..."

Jim Boone 1975
Allen Ginsberg 1955