Cry

(An Ode to Howl by Allen Ginsberg)

I

I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by social media, drugs, and an underwhelmingly cliche narrative

Stuck in a world that is constantly preoccupied with the latest gossip rather than the latest news hanging their heads low

Until they get their daily fix, of cell phone screens and celebrity tweets or else the world may stop on its axis

hollow-eyed and high sat up smoking my friends and I sat in the Chicago April chill, we ran against the wind barefoot

Who knew that just a tab can take you down a spiritual path, where the angels are crying over the overpass

The rooftops are lit and the wind ashes your cigarette as we admire our smoky breath in the city lights

We stumble through the night eventually reaching our home, crashing into the couch and then started to cry

Can hate really trump love in this great United States, answers are what we don’t want to receive because we already know

The divide between the human race is prevalent in the streets–

Staten Island, Chicago, Idaho, Baltimore, Oklahoma, Kansas, 

and the West Coast, too– 

 Capitalism has taken over the way humans think, we act on our oblivion and wish for the supernatural ecstacy

Of America and Eternity, only sustained by the one percent, human worth is secondary to money being spent

A world that is ruled by greed is the one that we are in, we escape the madness with art to somehow fill the void–

But materialism conquers over these mortal fiends, the spirit is the only key to live eternally

Wealth is measured in spoon fulls of health and wisdom, falling ever so fast into oblivion

We pace the streets with no intention in mind, only tension that exists between our tight clenched teeth

Walking past abandoned buildings and fluorescent-lit parking lots, the barbed wire and sound of chains

I cry into the night remembering the times we once had living fast roaring into the night only to crash into the sky

The world doesn’t know what it wants from you yet, you must hang tight and keep pushing along

The friends that are there will rally around, clear your tears, and light up your tea

Give you a place to sleep for the night because sometimes things aren’t going so right

Couch surfing is hard, but it can always be made easier if sharing the experience with a friend

Watching dusk turn to dawn after a night of conversation is the most sobering moment of a friendship

Reading each others stories and learning the shape of their voice makes the writing so much more important

To those who disappeared into the volcanoes of Mexico leaving behind nothing but the shadow of dungarees 

and the lava and ash of poetry scattered in fireplace Chicago, the city where dreams come to die

A soul gone too soon the only things left are the conversations, the moments we shared

Booze and dim lights of the Saturday night bar room, silhouette burning through the curtains candle-lit view

II

What sphinx of cement and aluminum bashed open their skulls and ate up their brains and imagination?

Satan! Stabbed! My! Friend! And I am crying enough for the devil to hear me in hell!

How! Satan! He knew all to well how he would dry up the well, take another soul and let his loved ones dwell!

Satan! You bastard and waste of a life, you took someone special with a cooking knife!

Satan! Satan! Nightmare of Satan! Loveless of Satan! Always plotting the next pharaoh

Satan whose mind is pure machinery! Satan whose blood is running money! 

Satan! Thou who steams with fury and shrieks in his firey dungeon of hell!

Satan! The power to make a grown man cry and drop to his knees! With each stab you repeat!

The hatred! Wicked Satan! You are filled with nothing but filth and hatred, forever to collect dust!

Deservant of no mercy you killed and threatened just to have the final word of hate spew from your lungs

Satan! The ol’ stealer of life how you depress so many and deserve to suffer from here on out!

I banish your presence and wish to smash your soul along with the capitalism that you are so enthralled!

Satan who entered my soul early! Satan in whom I am a consciousness without a body! Satan who frightened me out of my natural ecstasy! Satan whom I abandon! Wake up in Satan! Light streaming out of the sky!

Visions! Omens! Scripture of your demise! Written in Hebrew for Satan’s devilish lies! 

Hallucinations! Not only happen if chemically induced! But paranoia of evil spirits following you!

Watching! And Waiting! In a silent stare, you cannot see them, but you know that they’re there!

Instead of letting Satan get to a place free of his sins, we will create a cauldron sea where he must live in a bubble!

Filled to the top with the blood of his victims! Stuffed to the core with his waste of a life! 

Light Satan afire as we chant our hate! If he didn’t enjoy it so much, he’d be burned on a stake!

So we let our hate die with his soul which remains alive! We never wish death on those who kill!

We just make sure their life begs for death! Breakthroughs! over the river! flips and crucifixions! gone down the flood! Highs! 

Epiphanies! Despairs! Ten years’ animal screams and suicides! Minds! New loves! Mad generation! down on the rocks of Time!

For Satan no one will bid farewell! Amongst the Satanic ritualistic hell, the only way to get out is through the well! 

Past the water and into the street!