The KGB Informer

deadly honest with my colleagues

I am completely reserved with friends and family

on whom I have to report weekly

to make ends meet


Svetlana is not aware that we belong to different castes


if her caste comes to power

my and my colleagues' names

will be published in sizeable books

and be accessible in all the bookshops and libraries of the country


then, we are finished

as even prostitutes will refuse to kiss us

The Gleam of Hope

night

seeds of light

in the soil

don't you spoil

don't you fear

all is clear

love is bright

see the light

While She's Asleep

you

are sitting

amidst the white kitchen

chewing grapes

drinking moonshine

reading

THE BOOK IS HUGE

paragraph

sip

paragraph

bite

chew chew chew

digest

think

and

at the crack of Dawn

you will realize

Allen Ginsberg's second experience with yage

From I Celebrate Myself by Bill Morgan:

Allen attended an all-night yage session with about thirty other men and women in a small hut on the outskirts of town. The brew was prepared fresh as they waited and were presented with a full ceremony. The Maestro, dressed in a pair of old pants and shirt, barefoot, with a baseball cap, crooned over the solution for several minutes before he allowed Allen to drain the cup. Allen lay down on a mat expecting another pleasant vision, but as he began to get high, "the whole fucking Cosmos broke loose around me, I think the strongest and worst I've ever had," he wrote. His LSD experiences had been near perfection but didn't get Allen so horribly deep into his mind. He felt that he was finally about to face death, but then he became nauseated from the drug and began to vomit. He hallucinated that he was surrounded by a circle of snakes and that he himself was a giant snake vomiting out the universe. After throwing up Allen went back and lay down on a mat again and Ramon came over and tenderly nursed him. The whole hut seemed to be alive with the spectral presences of the other participants, all undergoing transfigurations of one kind or another. It was as if they all had made contact with a single mysterious "thing" that was everyone's shared fate and sooner or later was going to kill everyone. Allen remained terrified as wave after wave of death fear washed over him. He realized that he might die, right then and there. After this experience Allen had to master the courage to continue with the drug. He was beginning to fear that yage might lead to some real madness, or that his universe might become permanently changed. To protect himself from insanity he regarded his illusions as temporary and tried to remind himself that he would return to his normal consciousness after the effects of the drug wore off.

Allen's brain was working overtime and he filled notebook after notebook with observations. He wrote many letters trying to explain his newest visions to his friends back home and composed "Magic Psalm," a more experimental poem than anything he had written before. Now he felt he understood Burroughs when he talked about approaching the unknown frontier via his writing.

Notes

Ramon - Allen's connection in Peru.
The Maestro - curandero "renowned for his supernatural curing powers."

The Soft Prison

all is well in the madhouse

as far as i can see

the russian flag is outside the window

and nobody's in a hurry

a flash brighter than the sun

won't make me sane

and my life has a quality of a dream