The naked ginsberg Poem by Dieter M Gräf

has clambered onto the Z of the fire
escape, showing those who live down
stairs: I've seen God! Still there,

as high as one of the lower
seraphim, just about in the
sphere of the six cornice

angels on the Bayard building;
their arms stretched out wide,
as if they were all going to

jump together. The city's
gotten old-fashioned, at
least since the fedayin pilots

genuined and topped its films,
since the 21st century smashed
its coliseum in—a pit, nothing.

The escapers looked
just like a tribe.
Sun, moon and stars

are still skyscrapers, and on
the ones putting up the naked
Ginsberg, trees are growing.

Even the more mighty give off colored
light. Such mountains, cloaked in fog,
and out of the gullies of the canyons

steam rises into Madison Ave.,
Fifth Avenue. Donald Trump
announces he wants to build the

Twin Towers again, higher! Meanwhile,
sitting in a Shabu Shabu restaurant,
at the house of Edgar Allan Poe,

watching the mounted police. John
Lennon is dead. We all understand
that, under and over the cisterns.

Translated by Andrew Shields