Howl

Another rain in the car story. I was dropping my sister off at her therapist's place, and decided (since her sessions only run like forty minutes) to stay in the car. I hooked my trusty MP3 player, Doctor Constable, to the car's speakers and queued up Allen Ginsberg's "Howl," which I had gotten earlier that day. I liked how the poem was stationary, but I could move. I moved through the car, listening to how the poem changed as I did so. And it's such an incredible poem. This recording of it is 20 minutes long, and it becomes such an experience, listening to this dead man speak, and he sounded dead, even then, but in such a way that he remembered what being alive was like even more than we do now, experiencing it.

I was parked with a beautiful view, a small creek in front of me, with tall grasses and cattails reaching up. The sky was blue and spread open. The mountains green and bursting full with wet color from the rain. Black birds with orange shoulders flew through the vegetation, landing on the cattails. Color, is what I am saying. All around, and shining. Like an impressionistic painting, the view through my windshield. (what a brute of a word, windshield. All literalism and utility. What does this thing do? It shields us from the wind!)

And my thoughts, and the poem, and the colors of the scene, all smeared together. Such a journey, running howling through Alan's mind, and Ashland, and life, and America, and in circles over the seats in my tiny car, in the rain.




listening to an audio recording of alan ginsberg performing "howl" in my car in the rain: ****