.....Wait. There are kids and a dog running after frisbee on the drill field on a cloudless breezy day. There is live music in the union, the weather is perfect for playing outside, so we do. I'm closer to new friends now more than ever. The smile has shaken off its weariness and is creeping back. Why would I want to leave?
I know that my mind is going to pull me in the opposite direction of whatever I decide to do. It's human nature, it's that two year old who could care less about the toy until someone else plays with it. That doesn't mean it doesn't feel funny. It feels really funny. I'm second guessing myself a little, but I know if I stayed, everything would slip back to normal and the deceptive illusions of the place that I love would fade back into what I'm trying to get away from. Until then, Starkville has never been so beautiful to me.
What I would give to be studying the beat poets right now. I want to read them all, soak myself in the controversy and rebellion, go for a run in the dusk, and then go to bed. Instead, I'm studying regency era feminism, surrounded by old dusty books from the farthest corner of the university library. I was talking to Daniel about academics in other countries the other day, and he told me that stress isn't put so much on the outside work but rather on the student to apply themselves to learning. What I would give for that right now. I hate writing papers simply for the purpose of having to prove that I've learned something new. I absolutely love my major. I love reading new things and sorting genres and feeling in my head. I don't want to prove it, I want to discuss it, I want to sit down and journal about it, I want to compare works and write similar stories and poems until I know the author so well that I know his thoughts. That's what I want.
America this is quite serious.
America this is the impression I get from looking in the television set.
America is this correct?
I'd better get right down to the job.
It's true I don't want to join the Army or turn lathes in precision
parts factories, I'm nearsighted and psychopathic anyway.
America I'm putting my queer shoulder to the wheel.
-Allen Ginsberg, America
1 comment:
if i may be so bold, here's my favorite beat poem ever:
Poets Hitchhiking on the Highway – Gregory Corso
Of course I tried to tell him
But he cranked his head
Without an excuse
I told him the sky chases
The sun
And he smiled and said:
“What’s the use.”
I was feeling like a demon
Again
So I said: “But the ocean chases
The fish.”
This time he laughed
And said: “Suppose the
Strawberry were
Pushed into a mountain.”
After that I knew the
War was on-
So we fought:
He said: “The apple-cart like a
Broomstick-angel
Snaps & splinters
Old Dutch shoes.”
I said: “Lightning will strike the old oak
And free the fumes!”
He said: “Mad street with no name.”
I said: “Bald killer! Bald killer! Bald killer!”
He said, getting real mad,
“Firestoves! Gas! Couch!”
I said, only smiling,
“I know God would turn back his head
if I sat quietly and thought.”
We ended by melting away,
Hating the air!
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