The Iron Horse – Philip Glass and Allen Ginsberg

wikipedia: Iron Horse is a poem written by Allen Ginsberg. It is an important part of his The Fall of America: Poems of These States sequence of poems written in the mid to late sixties. Iron Horse was published as a booklet in 1974 by City Lights.

The first part of Iron Horse was composed July 22, 1966, as Ginsberg rode a train from the West Coast to Chicago. It was initially dictated to tape and later transcribed. The second part of the poem takes place on a Greyhound bus.

The poem is typified by its fluctuating observations, and uses many of the same devises and expressions found in other poems in The Fall of America.

Some of the topics Ginsberg touches upon in the poem include: a group of soldiers riding the train some of them probably on their way to Vietnam and their mentality; a nostalgic feeling for his past and youth, ruminations on his own public persona, entertaining the thought of retiring to some solitary life; current events, headlines, conversations (overheard or imaginary) taking place on the train, and sights; both on and off the train.

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Master Song by Leonard Cohen

I believe that you heard your master sing
when I was sick in bed.
I suppose that he told you everything
that I keep locked away in my head.

Your master took you travelling,
well at least that’s what you said.
And now do you come back to bring
your prisoner wine and bread?

You met him at some temple, where
they take your clothes at the door.
He was just a numberless man in a chair
who’d just come back from the war.

And you wrap up his tired face in your hair
and he hands you the apple core.
Then he touches your lips now so suddenly bare
of all the kisses we put on some time before.

And he gave you a German Shepherd to walk
with a collar of leather and nails,
and he never once made you explain or talk
about all of the little details,

such as who had a word and who had a rock,
and who had you through the mails.
Now your love is a secret all over the block,
and it never stops not even when your master fails.

And he took you up in his aeroplane,
which he flew without any hands,
and you cruised above the ribbons of rain
that drove the crowd from the stands.

Then he killed the lights in a lonely Lane
and, an ape with angel glands,
erased the final wisps of pain
with the music of rubber bands.

And now I hear your master sing,
you kneel for him to come.
His body is a golden string
that your body is hanging from.

His body is a golden string,
my body has grown numb.
Oh now you hear your master sing,
your shirt is all undone.

And will you kneel beside this bed
that we polished so long ago,
before your master chose instead
to make my bed of snow?

Your eyes are wild and your knuckles are red
and you’re speaking far too low.
No I can’t make out what your master said
before he made you go.

Then I think you’re playing far too rough
for a lady who’s been to the moon;
I’ve lain by this window long enough
to get used to an empty room.

And your love is some dust in an old man’s cough
who is tapping his foot to a tune,
and your thighs are a ruin, you want too much,
let’s say you came back some time too soon.

I loved your master perfectly
I taught him all that he knew.
He was starving in some deep mystery
like a man who is sure what is true.

And I sent you to him with my guarantee
I could teach him something new,
and I taught him how you would long for me
no matter what he said no matter what you’d do.

I believe that you heard your master sing
while I was sick in bed,
I’m sure that he told you everything
I must keep locked away in my head.

Your master took you travelling,
well at least that’s what you said,
And now do you come back to bring
your prisoner wine and bread?

listen to Master Song on BLIP.FM

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“A Sick Child” by Randall Jarrell (poetry reading)

A Sick Child

The postman comes when I am still in bed.
“Postman, what do you have for me today?”
I say to him. (But really I’m in bed.)
Then he says – what shall I have him say?

“This letter says that you are president
Of – this word here; it’s a republic.”
Tell them I can’t answer right away.
“It’s your duty.” No, I’d rather just be sick.

Then he tells me there are letters saying everything
That I can think of that I want for them to say.
I say, “Well, thank you very much. Good-bye.”
He is ashamed, and turns and walks away.

If I can think of it, it isn’t what I want.
I want . . . I want a ship from some near star
To land in the yard, and beings to come out
And think to me: “So this is where you are!

Come.” Except that they won’t do,
I thought of them. . . . And yet somewhere there must be
Something that’s different from everything.
All that I’ve never thought of – think of me!

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