Bold Type: Poem by Allen Ginsberg





		When I lay down to sleep dream the Wishing Well it rings "Have you a new play for the brokendown theater?" When I write in my notebook poem it rings "Buster Keaton is under the brooklyn bridge on Frankfurt and Pearl . . ." When I unsheath my skin extend my cock toward someone's thighs fat or thin, boy or girl Tingaling—"Please get him out of jail . . . the police are crashing down" When I lift the soupspoon to my lips, the phone on the floor begins purring "Hello it's me—I'm in the park two broads from Iowa . . . nowhere to sleep last night . . . hit 'em in the mouth" When I muse at smoke crawling over the roof outside my street wisdom purifying Eternity with my eye observation of grey vaporous columns in the sky ring ring "Hello this is Esquire be a dear and finish your political commitment manifesto" When I listen to radio presidents roaring on the convention floor the phone also chimes in "rush up to Harlem with us and see the riots" Always the telephone linked to all the hearts of the world beating at once crying my husband's gone my boyfriend's busted forever my poetry was rejected won't you come over for money and please won't you write me a piece of bullshit How are you dear can you come out to Easthampton we're all here bathing in the ocean we're all so lonely and I lay back on my pallet contemplating $50 phone bill, broke, drowsy, anxious, my heart fearful of the fingers dialing, the deaths, the singing of telephone bells ringing at dawn ringing all afternoon ringing up midnight ringing now forever. Your Email Address: Your Friend's Email Address:

		Excerpted from Poems of New York, edited by Elizabeth Schmidt. Poem copyright by Allen Ginsberg. Excerpted by permission of Knopf, a division of Random House. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.