Allen Ginsberg continues William Blake’s “America – A Prophecy” continues from here
AG: So, Orc burst forth in all his serpent beauty and power, and makes a speech:
“The morning comes, the night decays, the watchmen leave their stations;/The grave is burst, the spices shed, the linen wrapped up..” – (That’s from (the Bible) – “The grave is burst” is (the) resurrection of Christ – “The bones of death..” – (from Ezekiel – Remember these dry bones.? “Shall these bones live?” “these dry bones? – (Editorial note – “And he said unto me, Son of man, can these bones live? And I answered, O Lord God, thou knowest…Thus saith the Lord God unto these bones; Behold, I will cause breath to enter into you, and ye shall live..” – from the King James version)
– “The bones of death, the cov’ring clay, the sinews shrunk & dry’d./ Reviving, shake, inspiring move, breathing! awakening!/Spring like redeemed captives when their bonds & bars are burst; /Let the slave grinding at the mill, run out into the field:/Let him look up into the heavens & laugh in the bright air;/ Let the inchained soul shut up in darkness and in sighing,/ Whose face has never seen a smile in thirty weary years;/ Rise and look out, his chains are loose, his dungeon doors are open…”
His senses are open – the dungeon, the caverned man. The senses are open. The slave grinding in the mill, the reasoner grinding inside his own brain. So the spiritual revolution as well as the physical liberation. The light was the bones of death, the grave is burst, the liberty has let him look up at the heavens and laugh in the bright air, and the opening of the senses (as) the “dungeon doors are open”
“And let his wife and children return from the opressors scourge;/They look behind at every step & believe it is a dream./Singing. The Sun has left his blackness, & has found a fresher morning/ And the fair Moon rejoices in the clear & cloudless night;/ For Empire is no more, and now the Lion & Wolf shall cease.”
That’s a great one, that one –
“In thunders ends the voice. Then Albions Angel wrathful burnt/Beside the Stone of Night; and like the Eternal Lions howl/In famine & war, reply’d. Art thou not Orc; who serprent-form’d/ Stands at the gate of Enitharmon to devour her children..” – (Harmonious nature, Enitharmon) – “Blasphemous Demon, Antichrist, hater of Dignities;/ Lover of wild rebellion, and transgresser of God’s Law..” – (Red Brigade!) – “Why dost thou come to Angels eyes in this terrific form?”
This is all the language of ” The Marriage of Heaven and Hell” – Demon, why do you come to the Angels in this horrible and snakelike form? It’s all a projection of the law-giver and the man who wants the law and order to be his way because he profits from it. So anything that breaks up that solidification of his own projections then appears to be demonic, horrible, wrathful, full of fright and fear (and) Leviathan, blood-specked anarchy. Terror.
to be continued..
Audio for the above can be heard here, beginning at approximately sixty-eight minutes in, and concluding at approximately sixty-nine-and-a-half minutes in