Backyards, Greenwich Village - 1914

Kaddish (An Elegy For Naomi Ginsberg, 1894-1956)

By: Allen Ginsberg

 

Strange now to think of you, gone without corsets & eyes, while I walk on

the sunny pavement of Greenwich Village.

downtown Manhattan, clear winter noon, and I’ve been up all night, talking,

talking, reading the Kaddish aloud, listening to Ray Charles blues

shout blind on the phonograph

the rhythm the rhythm–and your memory in my head three years after–

And read Adonais’ last triumphant stanzas aloud–wept, realizing

how we suffer–

And how Death is that remedy all singers dream of, sing, remember,

prophesy as in the Hebrew Anthem, or the Buddhist Book of An-

swers–and my own imagination of a withered leaf–at dawn–

Dreaming back thru life, Your time–and mine accelerating toward Apoca-

lypse

 

 

You can read the rest of the poem here.

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