Collected Poems 1947-1997

Мы не грязная наша кожа, мы не страшные, пыльные, безобразные паровозы, все мы душою прекрасные золотые подсолнухи, мы одарены семенами, и наши голые волосатые золотые тела при закате превращаются в сумасшедшие тени подсолнухов, за которыми пристально и вдохновенно наблюдают наши глаза в тени безумного кладбища паровозов над грязной рекой при свете заката над Фриско.

This is the one and only firmament;
therefore it is the absolute world.
There is no other world.
The circle is complete.
I am living in Eternity.
The ways of this world are the ways of Heaven.

Many seek and never see,
anyone can tell them why.
O they weep and O they cry
and never take until they try
unless they try it in their sleep
and never some until they die.
I ask many, they ask me.
This is a great mystery.

Only return of thought to its source will complete thought.
Only return of activity to its source will complete activity.
Listen to that.

Thought’s a stone, though sweet or sorry,
Run-down from an uphill climb:
Money, money, work and worry,
And all the aimless toil of Time.

Sometime I’ll lay down my wrath,
As I lay my body down
Between the ache of breath and breath,
Golden slumber in the bone.

Who’ll come lie down in the dark with me
Belly to belly and knee to knee
Who’ll look into my hooded eye
Who’ll lie down under my darkened thigh?

Я бродил по берегу грязной консервной свалки, и уселся в огромной тени паровоза «Сазерн
Пасифик», и глядел на закат над коробками вверх по горам, и плакал. Джек Керуак
сидел рядом со мной на ржавой изогнутой балке, друг и мы, серые и печальные, одинаково
размышляли о собственных душах в окружении узловатых железных корней машин.

Holy the supernatural extra brilliant intelligent kindness of the soul!

I always wanted to return to the body where I was born.

The faculties of the skull no longer admit the worms of the senses

who wandered around and around at midnight in the railroad yard wondering where to go, and went, leaving no broken hearts