I walked on the old Battleship Banana Pier, then sat under the huge shadow of a Southern Pacific tractor, watched the sunset on the hill of box houses over there, and then howled.
Jack Korouac is sitting next to me on a broken rusty iron pillar. Together, we are thinking about the problem of the soul at the same time. Pale, gloomy, and full of sadness, under the machine tree Surrounded by rough and lumpy iron roots.
The oily water on the river reflects the red sky, the sun sinks to the peaks of the Frisco peaks, there are no fish swimming in the small river, there are no hermits in those mountains, only us, with wet eyes , hanging on the river bank, like an old beggar, tired and weak but resourceful and shrewd.
Look at the sunflower, he said, a dead gray shadow clinging to the sky, as big as a man, sitting dry on a pile of old sawdust—
— — I rushed up, mesmerized — it was my first sunflower, a memory of Blake — my fantasy — Harlem.
The hell of the rivers of the East, the bridges roaring with Joe's grease sandwiches, the baby boxes of death, the forgotten black flat tires never used again, the poetry of the riverbanks , condoms and marijuana, steel knives, nothing is rusty, only the damp and dirty mineral ballast and sharp man-made objects like blades have transformed into the past——
Gray sunflowers hang toward the setting sun, It was crackling and exposed, covered with dirt, coal mist and smoke from the tractors of the past in its eyes -
The fuzzy crown fell down, tattered like a smashed crown, and the seeds fell out Its face is a mouth filled with bright air that will soon be without any teeth; the sun's rays paint its furry head like a spider web of dry gossamer; the branches and leaves stick out like an arm extending its main stem; A gesture made from sawdust roots, breaking pieces of plaster and falling out black twigs, and a dead fly landed in its ear.
You are an unholy thing from the past, my sunflower, oh, my soul, then I love you!
These accumulations are not the accumulation of man, but death, the traction machine of mankind. All that dusty clothing, that darkened rail-skin covering there, that smoke on the face, that black pained eyelid, that dusty hand or manhood or artificial bump that's worse than dust—industrial— —Modern—that everything civilized is staining your golden crown of fanaticism—
Those vague thoughts about death, those loveless eyes and terminals gathering dust, and below The withered roots in the housing pillars of sand and sawdust, the rubber dollar bills, the skin of machinery, the guts and guts of weeping, coughing cars, the empty, lonely old battleships with their rusty, whining tongues, I could name more, the burning ashes of some cock cigars, the holes of the carts and the creamy breasts of the cars, the ragged buttocks removed from the chairs and the sphincter of the dynamo - all of it, All tangled in your withered roots - and there you stood in the setting sun before me, all your glory in your form.
The perfect beauty of a sunflower! A perfect and adorable sunflower survival creature! Pairs of sweet natural eyes cast towards the reborn Xibi Moon, waking up alive and excited, grabbing the golden moon breeze of the rising sun in the shadow of the setting sun!
How many flies buzz around you without caring about your dirt as you curse the railroad sky and your flower soul?
Poor dead flower? When did you forget that you are a flower? When did you look at your skin and identify yourself as a feeble, dirty old tractor-trailer? Are you the ghost of the tractor? Are you the ghost and ghost of the once powerful and crazy American tractor!
You have never been a tractor, Sunflower, you have always been a sunflower!
And you, tractor, you are a tractor, don’t forget what I said!
So I grabbed the bone-thick sunflower and placed it on my side like a monarch staff, and delivered my teachings to my soul and to Jack's. Soul, communicated to anyone who would listen.
We are not our dusty skin, we are not our frighteningly pale and powerless dusty and imageless tractors, we are all golden sunflowers within, made of our own Blessed by the full form of seed and hairy ***, growing into crazy black orthodox sunflowers in sunsets, watched over by our own eyes, old Frisco hills in crazy tractor bank sunsets The night of battleships sits in the shadow of fantasy.
(Translated by Zhang Shaoxiong)
Notes:
Sutra: Sanskrit, meaning "thread". The word alludes to the teachings of Buddhism or Brahmanism.
Jack Korouac (1922-1969): Beat writer. His works include "On the Avenue" and so on.
Blake: English poet. In Harlem in 1948, Ginsberg had a visionary revelation. In a hallucination, he heard William Blake reciting the poem "Ho! sunflower".
Appreciation
Ginsberg and Crookea are both representative writers of the American "Beat Generation". In the United States in the mid-20th century, as a representative of the rebellious youth at that time, Ginsberg inherited the transcendentalist beliefs of Thoreau, Emerson, etc., hated American materialism, was indifferent to fame and fortune, ignored material enjoyment, and sought spiritual satisfaction. and sustenance of the soul. Throughout his life, he opposed the United States' integrated "military-industrial-political" rich-power system. He would not compromise due to changes in his economic and social status. He resolutely opposed the U.S. war of aggression in Vietnam and became famous for participating in anti-war demonstrations. arrested twice. The CIA has a special file on him and regards him as an "alien". Ginsberg was enthusiastically devoted to social welfare and human progress. He was well-known for his generosity and willingness to help others. During his lifetime, he set aside most of his income as a fund to support poor poets. It can be said that it was Ginsburg and her rebellious spirit that powerfully gave birth to the anti-war, black civil rights movement, ecological environmental protection, women's liberation and sexual revolution in the United States after World War II. Its influence continues to this day and extends to the world.
In 1948, Ginsberg had a visionary revelation in Harlem. In a hallucination, he heard William Blake reciting the poem "Ho! Sunflower》:
Oh, sunflower! With the boredom of time
Counting the steps of the sun all day long.
It seeks the sweet and golden horizon -
There the weary journey ends;
There, the youth is haggard with longing and dies early,
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The pale virgins covered with snow-cloths,
all rise from their graves yearning for -
Towards the country where my sunflowers will go.
Ginsburg had a religious love and belief in the sunflower. He called it "Sutra", which means doctrine. The country the sunflower is going to is golden and sweet, where there is no cold, no hunger, no death, and everything is bright and warm. That's heaven. Sunflowers are flowers of heaven.
And now, he was sitting in an old dock full of machines, and his eyes were filled with filth and filth. Among the filth, soot and smoke, there stood a dilapidated sunflower. The gray sunflower in front of me, hanging toward the setting sun, is like the face of a weather-beaten old man. It is full of deep wrinkles, and the folds are filled with dust. Its eyes are dull, its teeth have fallen out, and its limbs are as stiff as dead wood. It lives and dies in the garbage created by humans.
Modern people are fanatically pursuing industrial, modern, and civilized life, and have long been blind to the beauty of nature. In the jungle of steel and concrete, in the pursuit of money and material desires, people's desire not only does not disappear, but instead expands again and again. In wars, people kill each other. In the process of conquering nature, people kill animals and cut down plants. Where human iron hooves have trampled, corpses lie strewn, blood flows into rivers, grass withers and poplars are withered, and it is in dilapidated condition. Human hearts have been broken and riddled with holes, waiting for Sunflower's redemption.
The great painter Van Gogh dedicated the sunflower with strong bones to the world with his magical brush. The strong yellow not only illuminates our eyes, but also hurts our hearts. He lets us understand what kind of sparks a person's tenacious spirit will burst out when facing the ruthless external world, until it burns into a raging flame, burning all the filthy things, and the soul is reborn like a phoenix in Nirvana. War, machinery, money, and grease generally blind our ears, eyes and hearts. But as soon as we approach Van Gogh, we will immediately feel a brilliance rushing towards us, inspiring our already numb nerves. The world came to an end, and the true nature emerged. We saw the most intense light, the compelling colors, the rotation and burning, the roar and the explosion. The curtain in front of us was pierced, and we finally saw ourselves clearly, amid the dust and garbage. Under the cover of love, we are all golden sunflowers, we are all looking for the sweet golden paradise, but we are still on the way.
Ginsberg said, "The sunflower is like a monarch's staff, and then conveys my teachings to my soul" and "conveys it to everyone who is willing to listen." I hope everyone in the world can hear it.
(Du Fengjiao)