<html><head><meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"></head><body dir="auto"><div dir="ltr"><span style="font-family: canada-type-gibson, "Gill Sans", "Gill Sans MT", Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 28px; font-weight: 600; -webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">1959</span><div dir="ltr"><div><div><br></div><div>by Gregory Corso</div><div><br></div><div>Uncomprising year—I see no meaning to life.</div><div>Though this abled self is here nonetheless,</div><div>either in trade gold or grammaticness,</div><div>I drop the wheelwright’s simple principle—</div><div>Why weave the garland? Why ring the bell?</div><div><br></div><div>Penurious butchery these notoriously human years,</div><div>these confident births these lucid deaths these years.</div><div>Dream’s flesh blood reals down life’s mystery—</div><div>there is no mystery.</div><div>Cold history knows no dynastic Atlantis.</div><div>The habitual myth has an eagerness to quit.</div><div><br></div><div>No meaning to life can be found in this holy language</div><div>nor beyond the lyrical fabricator’s inescapable theme</div><div>be found the loathed find—there is nothing to find.</div><div><br></div><div>Multitudinous deathplot! O this poor synod—</div><div>Hopers and seekers paroling meaning to meaning,</div><div>annexing what might be meaningful, what might be meaningless.</div><div><br></div><div>Repeated nightmare, lachrymae lachrymae—</div><div>a fire behind a grotto, a thick fog, shredded masts,</div><div>the nets heaved—and the indescribable monster netted.</div><div>Who was it told that red flesh hose be still?</div><div>For one with smooth hands did with pincers</div><div>snip the snout—It died like a yawn.</div><div>And when the liver sack was yanked</div><div>I could not follow it to the pan.</div><div><br></div><div>I could not follow it to the pan—</div><div>I woke to the reality of cars; Oh</div><div>the dreadful privilege of that vision!</div><div>Not one antique faction remained;</div><div><br></div><div>Egypt, Rome, Greece,</div><div>and all such pedigree dreams fled.</div><div>Cars are real! Eternity is done.</div><div>The threat of Nothingness renews.</div><div>I touch the untouched.</div><div>I rank the rose militant.</div><div>Deny, I deny the tastes and habits of the age.</div><div>I am its punk debauche .... A fierce lampoon</div><div>seeking to inherit what is necessary to forfeit.</div><div><br></div><div>Lies! Lies! Lies! I lie, you lie, we all lie!</div><div>There is no us, there is no world, there is no universe,</div><div>there is no life, no death, no nothing—all is meaningless,</div><div>and this too is a lie—O damned 1959!</div><div>Must I dry my inspiration in this sad concept?</div><div>Delineate my entire stratagem?</div><div>Must I settle into phantomness</div><div>and not say I understand things better than God?</div></div><div><br></div>—————————————————<br><br><div dir="ltr"><div><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Seeya 'round town, Moscow, because . . .</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><br></span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">"Moscow Cares" (the most fun you can have with your pants on)</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">http://www.MoscowCares.net</span></div><div><br></div><div><div><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Tom Hansen</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Moscow, Idaho</span></div></div><div><br></div><div>“A stranger is just a friend you haven’t met.”</div><div>- Roy E. Stolworthy</div><div></div></div></div></div></body></html>