chapter FIVE: Howl
I like this job.
I don’t talk to anybody. I just wash.
Manhattan.
Actually, it’s my first job. Dishwasher.
the only one
The silence allows me to think about the thing I love most.
Poetry.
Five in the morning. The city has insomnia.25
A hooker shouts. Hey you! Motherfucker! I’m
who hears. A broken, confused voice that seems to dance in the air.
Buenos aires. 26
That journal’s still being published?
Apparently so.
Katz! How are you, Tabachnik?
Shall we get started?
Stick around, Hugo... I think you’re going to like this.
Bar Florida.
Sure, Basilia...
The girls from “Airón” are here.
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The opening words sent a chill through the room.
As if a spectral presence had taken possession of the bar.
by Allen Ginsberg.“Howl”
Then came angels’ scratches.
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And demons’ kisses.
The poem was an auger.
A visceral description.
And the auger didn’t stop.
it kept drilling into our ears.
A crude X-ray.
A descent into the deepest, foulest reaches.
A vomiting. But with divine aspirations.29
Squeezing out our souls.
Later.
So,
what did you think?
That poem changed my life. it altered my path and pointed me north.
Then...
I let it carry me along.
Written with passion and madness.
That’s the beatniks! You’ve got to read them...Amazing.
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