Crossing Nation

written by


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Under silver wing
 San Francisco's towers sprouting
 thru thin gas clouds,
 Tamalpais black-breasted above Pacific azure
 Berkeley hills pine-covered below-
Dr Leary in his brown house scribing Independence
  Declaration
 typewriter at window
  silver panorama in natural eyeball-

Sacramento valley rivercourse's Chinese
 dragonflames licking green flats north-hazed
 State Capitol metallic rubble, dry checkered fields
  to Sierras- past Reno, Pyramid Lake's
  blue Altar, pure water in Nevada sands'  
 brown wasteland scratched by tires

 Jerry Rubin arrested!  Beaten, jailed,
  coccyx broken-
Leary out of action-"a public menace…
 persons of tender years…immature
 judgement…pyschiatric examination…"
i.e. Shut up or Else   Loonybin or Slam

Leroi on bum gun rap, $7,000
  lawyer fees, years' negotiations-
SPOCK GUILTY headlined temporary, Joan Baez'
  paramour husband Dave Harris to Gaol
Dylan silent on politics, & safe-
  having a baby, a man-
Cleaver shot at, jail'd, maddened, parole revoked,

Vietnam War flesh-heap grows higher,
  blood splashing down the mountains of bodies
  on to Cholon's sidewalks-
Blond boys in airplane seats fed technicolor
 Murderers advance w/ Death-chords
 Earplugs in, steak on plastic
  served-Eyes up to the Image-

What do I have to lose if America falls?
 my body? my neck? my personality?

© Allen Ginsberg