Allen Ginsberg's America

Seen on: YouTube

America
America I've given you all and now I'm nothing.
America two dollars and twenty-seven cents January 17, 1956.
I can't stand my own mind.

America when will we end the human war?

- Allen Ginsberg

Face to Face with Allen Ginsberg

Seen on: Google Video

Allen-Ginsberg talks about writing private-poetry. He saw his generation fade away in madness, and started writing unpublishable poems.

Explicit and vivid interview, by Jeremy Isaacs. Still some-how relevant today.

Do not stand at my grave

Do not stand at my grave and weep;
I am not there. I do not sleep.
I am a thousand winds that blow.
I am the diamond glints on snow.
I am the sunlight on ripened grain.
I am the gentle autumn rain.
When you awaken in the morning's hush
I am the swift uplifting rush
Of quiet birds in circled flight.
I am the soft stars that shine at night.
Do not stand at my grave and cry;
I am not there. I did not die.

Written at least 50 years ago, this poem has been attributed at different times to J.T. Wiggins (an English emigre to America), two Americans: Mary E. Fry and Marianne Reinhardt, and more recently to Stephen Cummins, a British soldier killed in Northern Ireland who left a copy for his relatives.

Others claim it is a Navajo burial prayer.

- The Poetry Library