The Dangerous
Garden of Robert LaVigne
First! the Flower Inside, burst out
larger than life, and jacking
itself up over our drunken heads on
the beanstalk of the imagination:
then Narcissus making it with itself
in its blue platonic pool:
and Butterfly, escaped into the dangerous
garden, watching us with nervous
eye as he goes to it with his Lily ball:
he's worried, and with good reason:
there's Young Geranium with his pastel brain
and droopy green nose beneath:
and the sturdy Virgin Flower of the North
with his bright little balls:
O but Natasha! with her redhead armpits in
her ears, and great dollop
yellow tongue given forward to an
orange hairy suck herself:
and the Breathing Flower's delicate case
about which nothing may
be whispered, since the slightest breath
might disturb her balance:
and Two Wild Yellow Flowers who will
renounce their tigerish trade
and submit to taming and domestication
by some kind hand for only $35:
possibly lower their pride for a sensitive gardener:
and the Cross-eyed Gaga,
with its watchface of twentyeight petals
(two each for every hour of
Time and four extra for Apocalypse)
motioning toward the Eternity
deep behind its two round blue eyes:
and the Blue Flowers Trying
Not To Forget but merely succeeding
in being very pretty:
and the Flower Knowing Itself By Moonlight,
lifting its hands in dedication
one moment before the exquisite act--
notice the little Peter--:
and the weak-wristed Dream Flower's
redfaced swish, deploring th'
ugliness of its own fantastick Panicles:
and the Daisies with inflamed
eyes waving so excited and hairy up
the bedclothes--and him with
his big yellow egg head sniffing
somebody's green foot--
Help! they're stealing my petals!--Take
your stem out of my ear!
--I can't I've got a Thistle in my eye!--
and last the Farewell Flag,
the flower wrapped on Time's victorious
arrow flying toward (either
the Wilde Romantics or) Robert La Vigne himself
who planted that blossom in front
of his lone head and glorified his hand.-Allen Ginsberg
1955, San Francisco