portion of the artwork for Charles Leggett's poetry

Ginsberg
Charles Leggett

Ginsberg I’ve given my thousand per cent and I am solvent.
April 15 1994 I am in the black.
I couldn’t lose a penny in the Potomac.
Ginsberg when will we end the tax war?
Go fuck yourself with your employer mandate.
I am psyched what can I do for you?
I’m ready to open up your markets.
Ginsberg when will you be angelic?
When will you put on your clothes?
When will you look at yourself through an income bracket?
When will you be worthy of your million Liddies?
Ginsberg why are your libraries full of books?
Ginsberg who says India wants my eggs?
I’m sick of your beating off in public.
I can go into the supermarket and sell what you need with my good looks.
Ginsberg never mind perfect you can only sell what’s perfect once.
Your Rockets are too much for me.
You made me want to be a beat patrolman.
I didn’t start the argument to begin with.
Burroughs is hawking Nikes but it’s all a lie because they couldn’t even get the shoes to
          stay on his feet.
I’m not being sinister this isn’t a practical joke it’s a poem can’t you tell?
It’s 1994 and you’re still trying to come to the point. You are loquationally challenged.
Ginsberg I know you know what you’re doing that’s what bothers me.
Ginsberg to hell with the plum blossoms I got money growing on my family tree.
I read six newspapers twice a day I subscribe to murder trials.
Ginsberg I feel sentimental about the Freedom Fighters.
Ginsberg I used to be an Eagle Scout when I was a kid I’m not sorry.
I drink wine coolers every chance I get.
I sit in my condo for days on end and interact with my Sega.
When I go to the mall I buy the kids Orange Julius and instruct them not to come here to
          get laid.
My mind is made up everything’s peachy.
You should have seen me reading George Will.
My stockbroker thinks I’m perfectly right.
I don’t need to say the Lord’s Prayer.
I have mystical visionary cosmically vibratory flat-out pure good luck.
Ginsberg you keep your hands off G.I. Joe when he gets back from Haiti.

You’re not addressing me, you’re undressing me with your sim-ill-eyes.
My emotional life is not run by Time Magazine. My intellectual life is run by Time
          Magazine
. My emotional life is run by one of the leading indexes plus three per
          cent and my political life is run by the Columbia House Records Club.
My obligations to the Columbia House Records Club are very serious and because of the
          Columbia House Records Club my stamp collection is very serious.
If it occurred to me that I was Allen Ginsberg, the last person I would talk to is myself.
Asia is just better organized than you.
They just pawn off their old-time religion on you so you’ll sit around trying to make
          sense of it while they laugh all the way to that bank of yours they just bought.
My national resources are a matter of public record, thank you very much. References
          available upon request.
Did I mention my stamp collection?
I have abolished the coca fields of Panama—even while I’ve saved the oil fields of
          Kuwait—the poppy fields of Afghanistan are the next to go.
My ambition is to be President despite that fact that FUCK YOU ALL I’M A CHRISTIAN

Ginsberg how can I write my shopping lists in your bitchy mood?
I will continue like Christopher Columbus every shopping trip discovery and conquest.
          I won’t just sell you what I buy on my shopping trip. I will sell you my entire shopping
          trip. Mark your calendar. See your travel agent. Buy my shopping trip.
Ginsberg free Leona Helmsley.
Ginsberg save Bob Packwood.
Ginsberg Menendez and Menendez must not die.
Ginsberg I am the Keating Five.
Ginsberg when I was two Father took us to Republican Party Conventions they sold us
          peanuts the starch felt like steel the men were puffy like cartoon superheroes and
          the women didn’t say much at all the Hilton floors were alive with family values.

Ginsberg nobody calls it war anymore.
Ginsberg what they do call war nowadays is just good business. That’s why The Wall
          Street Journal
nowadays reads like a combat manual.
Most of the problems have taken or will take care of themselves. Look at them Russians.
          That’s a problem that took care of itself, that went from being very, very good
          business to being good business with milder threats.
We were wondering about the Chinamen ’til they sprung a big zit in 1989 granted they
          popped it with aplomb but adolescence is an unstoppable force and the Chinese
          culture has clearly arrived.
Them Native Americans and them big black African-Americans—again, clearly these are
          problems well on their way to taking care of themselves.
Ginsberg I know you think it’s all quite serious—that’s what bothers me.
Ginsberg you’re not meant to get impressions from the television set, you’re simply
          meant to believe it.
Ginsberg of course it’s correct, it wouldn’t be on television if it weren’t.
Even Paulie Shor wouldn’t serve next to your queer shoulder in this man’s Army. “Don’t
          Ask/Don’t Tell” isn’t just for poets anymore.


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FRiGG: A Magazine of Fiction and Poetry | Issue 44 | Fall 2014