DREAM OF CARL SOLOMON
I meet Carl Solomon. “What’s it like in the afterworld?”
“It’s just like in the mental hospital. 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.”
– circa 1996
from Wait Till I’m Dead: Uncollected Poems Grove Press / Penguin UK 2016
Carl Solomon would have been 89 years old today. [96 years old – 2025]
Previous Carl Solomon postings on The Allen Ginsberg Project here, here and here, (and a Carl Solomon 1982 Naropa reading here)
Allen did with words what Charlie Chaplin did with silence. He walked around in dreams chanting mantras waking the dead proceeding to ask them questions only to wake up laughing. ❤️