Pat Thomas’ newly-published Material Wealth – We continue to extol the treasures of this volume
Here’s one of the most resonant artifacts – from Allen’s 1957 Paris notebook – “First Notations of Kaddish”
Elegy For Mama
Call Peter to come to the Door! Open the/ Gates of Gold X down from the Cross!/ Call Mary out of her Ivory Cloud! Call/ down the god out of heaven Feet on/ the thundering floor!
Call down the Trembling Lamb! Call on/the Seraphs and Horns!
Call on the Horses of Heaven to drag out the Fiery Chariot and raise her on/ high in the palace of Glittering (absolute) (alabaster) Joy!
Greystone Greystone, risen from New Jersey, lifted/ bodily the hospital up into the sky
Song of Naomi
4 Big Sticks, 4 big sticks, 4 big sticks in my back/ wires in my head the ceiling is a radio/ FDR is my mother-in-law Crawling through the window/. I saw the Key, the key in bars,sun is the key
Now all is changed for me/And all is changed for thee/Naomi/Worry until the brain breaks down/Cerebral hemorrhage/ I hear the heart torn out of the world.
Thomas, in the accompanying text writes:
“Early notes for what later became the poem Kaddish, about the death (in 1956) of Allen’s mother; note “Elegy for Mama” written across. the top of the page. He thought about it for years , and then started to jot down some notes (circa 1958), but didn’t finish the poem for another couple of years.
Along with Howl, Kaddish, published in 1961 as Volume 17 of City Lights Pocket Poet series, stands as one of Allen Ginsberg’s most illustrious works. Always a follower of popular trends In music, Ginzy had spent parts of 1958 digging into Ray Charles’ song “I Got a Woman”, occasionally doing so while on morphine and met amphetamines.One evening, while cranking some Ray in this drug-induced state, Ginsberg began discussing his mother Naomi with his pal Zev Putterman. Putterman in turn began reciting the traditional Hebrew “Kaddish” prayer for mourning the dead. Soon after, fueled by dexadrine, LSD and caffeine, Allen penned the majority of Kaddish
In early 1959, Kaddish received its debut performance at a poetry reading at Columbia University in which Allen shared the bill with his lover Peter Orlovsky and fellow beat poet Gregory Corso. Over time the manuscript was tweaked and adjusted until publication in April 1961.”
It is worth noting that what we see here is two pages, two discrete pages, not sequential, from a longer journal entry. The full journal entry may be seen in Journals Mid-Fifties 1954-58 edited by Gordon Ball
The “missing lines”. The poem continues:
“Her mouth is a radio/ Paranoia grandma/Climbing up the outside/apartment walls at night./ Mother, what should I have done to save you/Should I have put out the sun?/ Should I have not called the police/ Should. have been your lover
Should I have held your hands and walked in the park/ at midnight for 60 years?/I am a poet I will put out the sun.
Mother, after your death/what can I do for you now/Come bearing armfuls of magic roses?/ Come visit your grave/and stare at he enter sun?/Come visit your paid piece of earth/ come visit your cunt in the dirt?/Come visit the shades?
Down there, Aunt Elanor with feeble voice/ thin arms imploring/Sngs arias from Norma buy Bellini
Down there Uncle Max/Runs pharmacy of Moonlight/peddles dope of Styx/worm antibiotics,/ Silence hypnotics
Down there Aunt Tillie/Will join you/With her loud voice/Raucous laughter/Screaming at underground cabbage
Down there Louis, Eugene, Pinkus/ grandma 3 generations/I will come too, don’t worry/ Already I’m 31/Bald, mystic, my heart full of Cocks/Death in the palm of my hand
– and find you?/Naked singing folk songs among the/smelly tendrils of roots of trees?
We’ll all be filthy angle,/Can’t get the smear out of our mouths/going mad again underground
Will you have paranoia of walls/where there are no walls/Will I write Metamorphosis/with my heart eaten by ants?
“We become a leaf, a carrot, a cabbage”/ I will become my imagination.
Bardo Thodol – were you screaming/at a vast apparitional/foamy mouthed giant/at the end of space?
Mother Mother let me begin/ I’ll explain in 6 languages/Dearie Cherie Amanti etc/ Mother Mother!
Whenever I see the sea/When I see the sea/O mother O mother/Issa said/
Abraham laughing with his face in the dust
All hail! All hail Heart! All hail home! All hail hallowed/ hallowed heaven!/ King! Christ! Angel! Receiver! Savior! Comforter!/All hail high! All hail low! All hail hallelujah like the Lord!
Jacob – “How dreadful is this place! There is none other but the house of God, and this is the age of heaven.” – Genesis 28:17
and then, under the notation “Jazz Mass for Mama” – the “Song of Naomi” – (“4 Big sticks, 4 big sticks…”)
If these notations are pre-Kaddish, check out also post-Kaddish notations – here