Plutonian Ode

By Allen Ginsberg

I

What new element before us unborn in nature? Is there

       a new thing under the Sun?

At last inquisitive Whitman a modern epic, detonative,

       Scientific theme

First penned unmindful by Doctor Seaborg with poison-

       ous hand, named for Death's planet through the

       sea beyond Uranus

whose chthonic ore fathers this magma-teared Lord of

       Hades, Sire of avenging Furies, billionaire Hell-

       King worshipped once

with black sheep throats cut, priests's face averted from

       underground mysteries in single temple at Eleusis,

Spring-green Persephone nuptialed to his inevitable

       Shade, Demeter mother of asphodel weeping dew,

her daughter stored in salty caverns under white snow,

       black hail, grey winter rain or Polar ice, immemor-

       able seasons before

Fish flew in Heaven, before a Ram died by the starry

       bush, before the Bull stamped sky and earth

or Twins inscribed their memories in clay or Crab'd

       flood

washed memory from the skull, or Lion sniffed the

       lilac breeze in Eden—

Before the Great Year began turning its twelve signs,

       ere constellations wheeled for twenty-four thousand

       sunny years

slowly round their axis in Sagittarius, one hundred

       sixty-seven thousand times returning to this night

Radioactive Nemesis were you there at the beginning

       black dumb tongueless unsmelling blast of Disil-

       lusion?

I manifest your Baptismal Word after four billion years

I guess your birthday in Earthling Night, I salute your

       dreadful presence last majestic as the Gods,

Sabaot, Jehova, Astapheus, Adonaeus, Elohim, Iao,

       Ialdabaoth, Aeon from Aeon born ignorant in an

       Abyss of Light,

Sophia's reflections glittering thoughtful galaxies, whirl-

       pools of starspume silver-thin as hairs of Einstein!

Father Whitman I celebrate a matter that renders Self

       oblivion!

Grand Subject that annihilates inky hands & pages'

       prayers, old orators' inspired Immortalities,

I begin your chant, openmouthed exhaling into spacious

       sky over silent mills at Hanford, Savannah River,

       Rocky Flats, Pantex, Burlington, Albuquerque

I yell thru Washington, South Carolina, Colorado,

       Texas, Iowa, New Mexico,

Where nuclear reactors create a new Thing under the

       Sun, where Rockwell war-plants fabricate this death

       stuff trigger in nitrogen baths,

Hanger-Silas Mason assembles the terrified weapon

       secret by ten thousands, & where Manzano Moun-

       tain boasts to store

its dreadful decay through two hundred forty millenia

       while our Galaxy spirals around its nebulous core.

I enter your secret places with my mind, I speak with

       your presence, I roar your Lion Roar with mortal

       mouth.

One microgram inspired to one lung, ten pounds of

       heavy metal dust adrift slow motion over grey

       Alps

the breadth of the planet, how long before your radiance

       speeds blight and death to sentient beings?

Enter my body or not I carol my spirit inside you,

       Unnaproachable Weight,

O heavy heavy Element awakened I vocalize your con-

       sciousness to six worlds

I chant your absolute Vanity.  Yeah monster of Anger

       birthed in fear O most

Ignorant matter ever created unnatural to Earth! Delusion

       of metal empires!

Destroyer of lying Scientists! Devourer of covetous

       Generals, Incinerator of Armies & Melter of Wars!

Judgement of judgements, Divine Wind over vengeful

       nations, Molester of Presidents, Death-Scandal of

       Capital politics! Ah civilizations stupidly indus-

       trious!

Canker-Hex on multitudes learned or illiterate! Manu-

       factured Spectre of human reason! O solidified

       imago of practitioner in Black Arts

I dare your reality, I challenge your very being! I

       publish your cause and effect!

I turn the wheel of Mind on your three hundred tons!

       Your name enters mankind's ear! I embody your

       ultimate powers!

My oratory advances on your vaunted Mystery! This

       breath dispels your braggart fears! I sing your

       form at last

behind your concrete & iron walls inside your fortress

       of rubber & translucent silicon shields in filtered

       cabinets and baths of lathe oil,

My voice resounds through robot glove boxes & ignot

       cans and echoes in electric vaults inert of atmo-

       sphere,

I enter with spirit out loud into your fuel rod drums

       underground on soundless thrones and beds of

       lead

O density! This weightless anthem trumpets transcendent

       through hidden chambers and breaks through

       iron doors into the Infernal Room!

Over your dreadful vibration this measured harmony        

       floats audible, these jubilant tones are honey and

       milk and wine-sweet water

Poured on the stone black floor, these syllables are

       barley groats I scatter on the Reactor's core,

I call your name with hollow vowels, I psalm your Fate

       close by, my breath near deathless ever at your

       side

to Spell your destiny, I set this verse prophetic on your

       mausoleum walls to seal you up Eternally with

       Diamond Truth!  O doomed Plutonium.

                       II

The Bar surveys Plutonian history from midnight

       lit with Mercury Vapor streetlamps till in dawn's

       early light

he contemplates a tranquil politic spaced out between

       Nations' thought-forms proliferating bureaucratic

& horrific arm'd, Satanic industries projected sudden

       with Five Hundred Billion Dollar Strength

around the world same time this text is set in Boulder,

       Colorado before front range of Rocky Mountains

twelve miles north of Rocky Flats Nuclear Facility in

       United States of North America, Western Hemi-

       sphere

of planet Earth six months and fourteen days around

       our Solar System in a Spiral Galaxy

the local year after Dominion of the last God nineteen

       hundred seventy eight

Completed as yellow hazed dawn clouds brighten East,

       Denver city white below

Blue sky transparent rising empty deep & spacious to a

       morning star high over the balcony

above some autos sat with wheels to curb downhill

       from Flatiron's jagged pine ridge,

sunlit mountain meadows sloped to rust-red sandstone

       cliffs above brick townhouse roofs

as sparrows waked whistling through Marine Street's

       summer green leafed trees.

                       III

                       

This ode to you O Poets and Orators to come, you

       father Whitman as I join your side, you Congress

       and American people,

you present meditators, spiritual friends & teachers,

       you O Master of the Diamond Arts,

Take this wheel of syllables in hand, these vowels and

       consonants to breath's end

take this inhalation of black poison to your heart, breath

       out this blessing from your breast on our creation

forests cities oceans deserts rocky flats and mountains

       in the Ten Directions pacify with exhalation,

enrich this Plutonian Ode to explode its empty thunder

       through earthen thought-worlds

Magnetize this howl with heartless compassion, destroy

       this mountain of Plutonium with ordinary mind

       and body speech,

thus empower this Mind-guard spirit gone out, gone

       out, gone beyond, gone beyond me, Wake space,

       so Ah!