-
In 1958, stationed at Treasure Island waiting for discharge from the Navy, I first visited City Lights and bought a copy of A Coney Island of the Mind that I carried with me throughout my university years and from which I taught throughout my career as professor of Creative Writing and Literature. Now, as Berkeley, California’s first Poet Laureate, it was from that same copy that I read at the Koret Auditorium, San Francisco Public Library on March 17, 2019—to celebrate Lawrence Ferlinghetti’s 100th year—“Constantly Risking Absurdity” (a poem that I taught in all of my Introduction to Poetry and American Literature courses).
R.J.G.
--------------------In the Circus of the Soul
-------------for Lawrence Ferlinghetti on his 100th year
His light was that of city lights,
the coney island lights that played
tricks, some wondrous, on his mind.
He left the big apple to wonder & to seek
a golden one & came to the golden state
to find it by the golden gate where the poet-
painter-bookworm grew his wings & godfathered
a generation with a jazz beat, beat tired & out
of beat with an America smug & cruel in its fear
of not being great enough, bums in search of zen
beatitude on the road to the land's end
where they could not but turn the yawp into a howl
that the poet-painter-purveyor of words broadcast
to a prude U.S. of A. & defended its right
to be heard wide, the howl that called west
a hippier generation to counter a culture bent
on death and start a revolution of love & joy enough
to stop a hopeless war. And all along, in the circus
of the soul, big hearted but no bum, our tight- rope-
walking larryferli man courted gravity-defying
blind beauty that more often than not,
he caught in midflight, because he gave her sight.
-------------------© Rafael Jesús González 2019
----------------------Poet Laureate, City of Berkeley
--------------------------En el circo del alma
-----------------a Lawrence Ferlinghetti en su centésimo año
Su luz era de las luces de la ciudad,
las luces de la isla de coney que le hacían
trucos, algunos de maravilla, en su mente.
Dejó la manzana grande para vagar y buscar
una dorada y vino al estado dorado
para encontrarla en la puerta dorada donde
-------el poeta-
pintor-ratón de biblioteca creció sus alas
------y apadrinó
una generación con ritmo de jazz, cansada y fuera
de ritmo con una América presumida y cruel
-----en su temor
de no ser lo bastante grande, holgazanes en busca
de beatitud zen en el camino al fin de las tierras
donde no pudieron mas que volver el gañido
-----en aullido
que el poeta-pintor-proveedor de palabas difundió
a un EE. UU. de A. mojigato y defendió su derecho
de ser oído ampliamente, el aullido que llamó
-----al oeste
una generación más jipi contra una cultura
-----propensa
a la muerte a comenzar una revolución de amor
-----y goce bastante
para ponerle el alto a una guerra imposible.
---Y a la vez en el circo
del alma, corazón grande pero no holgazán
----- nuestro funambulista
larryferli cortejó a la desafiadora de la gravedad
belleza ciega que más veces que no
arrebató a medio vuelo porque le dio visión.
----------------© Rafael Jesús González 2019
---------------------Poeta Laureado de la Cd. de Berkeley
-
-
