The 1969 Montreal reading continues today (with more poems from The Fall of America and, as conclusion, the chanting of a Buddhist mantra)
Allen continues his reading, first, with a poem entitled "Violence"– “Mexcity drugstore table giant/ sexfiend in black spats/Sticks knife in a plump faggot's sportscoat seam.."…."chic fairy gangsters with bloody hands/hustle after midnight to cut my throat from/ its beard")
Next, “Flying to Chicago – oh this August, 1968 on the way to the Convention ("Going To Chicago" - "("22,000 feet over Hazed square Vegetable planet Floor/Approaching Chicago to Die or flying over earth another/40 years…"…"Fire_Heaven Descending 22,000 Years End th' Atomic Aeon.." - [Allen is distracted - "Can you get settled, sir, I wonder" - continues..] - "The Lake's blue again, Sky's the same, baby.."..…"Scream in despair over Meat and Metal Microphone")
[This is foilowed by "Grant Park, August 28, 1968"] - Grant Park, after about the third day at the Convention Center, Humprey had been nominated - (“Green air, children sat under trees with the old,/bodies bare, eyes open to eyes under the hotel wall.."…"Who wants to be President of the/ Garden of Eden?")
[This is foilowed by "Grant Park, August 28, 1968"] - Grant Park, after about the third day at the Convention Center, Humprey had been nominated - (“Green air, children sat under trees with the old,/bodies bare, eyes open to eyes under the hotel wall.."…"Who wants to be President of the/ Garden of Eden?")
(Then), Aug 2 1969 – I’ll try and bring it up to this week [Oct 1969] - (“Rain-wet asphalt heat, garbage curbed, cans overflowing"("I hauled down lifeless mattresses to sidewalk refuse-piles/old rugs stept on from Paterson to Lower East Side filled with/bed-bugs…"… "…a glance behind/and sudden farewell to the bedbug-ridden mattresses piled/ soggy in dark rain")
and (approximately twenty-six and-half minutes in (in the third segment) - “Death on All Fronts"–"Half the blue globe's germ popuation more than enough to keep the cloudy lung from stinking pneumonia" (“A new moon looks down on our sick sweet planet/Orion's chased the Immovable Bear halfway across the sky"…."Mind fragmented - and still abstract - Pain in/left temple living death.")
(Finally), October 24th to 26th ..Returning from Kerouac's funeral – (from "Memory Gardens" - cemetery ("covered with yellow leaves/in morning rain…."…"artificial trees, robots sofas,/Ignorant cars -/One Way Street to Heaven/Dark institutes Redbrick facades" - (and) - (October 29th flying New York into Maine) - "Flying into a trail of black smoke/Kerouac's obituary conserves Time's/Front Paragraphs"…"…Well, while I'm here I'll/do the work -/and what's the Work?/ To ease the pain of living/Everything else, drunken/ dumbshow.")
(At approximately thirty-three-and-a-quarter minutes in (third segment), Allen continues)
(At approximately thirty-three-and-a-quarter minutes in (third segment), Allen continues)
AG: (You can) stay and talk if you want after... but I’d like to finish with a Buddhistmantra. Both songs we have sung so far have been Gnostic- (William) Blake, Western Christian Gnostic, and Hindu – SriKrishna and Shiva. So, for.. for finishing the with (Jack) Kerouac - the first mantra I ever heard was from Kerouac, who did bring a consciousness of Oriental bliss to the West, recently in Pop form. First mantra I ever heard was a thing called the Three Vows of Buddhism [the Three Jewels] - “In Buddha I take my refuge , in dharma(the nature or law of cause-and-effect orkarma), I take my refuge (in the nature of maya, or relation to an illusion, that we are void), and in sangha, the company of fellow Buddhists, I take my refuge - Buddhaṃ śaraṇaṃ gacchāmi/ Dharmaṃ śaraṇaṃ gacchami,/ Sanghaṃ śaraṇaṃ gacchāmi - and that’s repeated three times –Dutiyam-pi buddhaṃ (the second time) and Tatiyam-pi (third time)
Allen proceeds (from thirty-three-and-three-quarter minutes in to forty-one-and-three-quarter minutes in) to chant with harmonium accompaniment
[Audio for the above begins here, beginning at approximately eighteen-and-a-half minutes in (third segment) and comtinuing until approximatelyforty-one-and-three-quarter minutes in]
Allen proceeds (from thirty-three-and-three-quarter minutes in to forty-one-and-three-quarter minutes in) to chant with harmonium accompaniment
[Audio for the above begins here, beginning at approximately eighteen-and-a-half minutes in (third segment) and comtinuing until approximatelyforty-one-and-three-quarter minutes in]
