For Timothy & Barbara Leary
amid the noise of kisses and chatter in H’wood
late evening in March, dining with Agents
photographers, poets, reprobate-politicos
intelligent wives, beautiful
feet & noses, candle light, salad, champagne
Rock ‘n roll bands coming out of our mouths
all of us complete successful failures.
March 11, 1985
Allen Ginsberg
(1) Refuge name: Lion of Dharma
(2) Bodhisattva name: Heart of Peace
Stephen Gertz at Booktryst posted this yesterday & did a perfect job transcribing. He queries why Allen’d capitalized Agents and we do too. Sometimes Allen capitalized randomly, more often not. This was right after Collected Poems 1947-1980 was published, and Allen’s new agent Andrew Wylie hand engineered a huge book deal for Allen with Harper Collins, so quite possibly Wylie was on his mind when signing that book. Check out Booktryst
This copy of Ginsberg’s Collected Poems 1947-1980 is being offered by Benjamin Spademan, who is asking £5,000 ($7,400)
Maybe it was a paranoid play on the word "agent". There is this whispered view abroad that Allen would secretly have liked to shake off all the Business that surrounded him and just be a simple poet/ meditator instead of a money-making industry. I didn't know him, but I've heard it from people who did. And some of the poems would reflect it. Though in the end everybody is master of their own fate and if he'd REALLY wanted to do that, he would have done it.