Carl Solomon’s birthday today. He would have been eighty-eight.
For previous Solomon salutes (Solomon shout-outs), see here, here and here. His reading (in 1982) with Jack Micheline at Naropa at the Jack Kerouac Conference has been transcribed and can be heard and seen on the Allen Ginsberg Project here
Allen, from his new book of posthumous poems: (the book, actually concludes with two Carl Solomon poems, “Last Conversation with Carl or In Memoriam”, and the following, “Dream of Carl Solomon”):
I meet Carl Solomon
“What’s it like in the afterworld?”
“It’s just like in the mental
You get along if you follow the rules.”
“What are the rules?”
“The first rule is: Remember you’re dead
The second rule is: Act like you’re dead.”
Allen and Ed Sanders recite the Prajnaparamita Sutra at his funeral service: