Well, I was the bore, and the fool. How I wish I had that evening back, but know that I cannot for my cynical rejection of Ginsberg's feelings was a lesson. Kerouac, when he was still full of hope and spirituality, was fond of saying "Live your lives out? Naw. Love your lives out!" I suppose that's my New Year's wish to all of you. Reject the darkness, the cynical, the depraved, the nihilistic. We'll be exposed to much of that in the coming year, and it won't be easy holding on to the better part of ourselves. But we can at least try, right?
DP
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Love, from seed to seed, from planet to planet, the wind with its net through the darkening nations, war with its bloody shoes, or even the day, with a thorny night.
Wherever we went, islands or bridges or flags, there were the violins of the fleeting autumn, bullet-laced; happiness echoing at the rim of the wineglass; sorrow detaining us, with its lesson of tears.
Through all those republics the wind whipped- its arrogant pavilions, its glacial hair; it would return the flowers, later, to their work.
But no withering autumn ever touched us. In our stable place a love sprouted, grew: as rightfully empowered as the dew
[Pablo Neruda]
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Happy new year lbo-talkers! :->
Peace, paraconsistency and all that,
Ian