and Jonas is seen here (see above), courtesy Jennifer Elster, performing as part of a group show on death that took place in 2021, curated at the New Museum in New York by Heidi Hatry for Icons in Ash. Against images taken from his film, Jonas reads from his diaries.
Jonas Mekas diary entries
April 2nd 1997, 10 pm. Allen Ginsberg just called. His voice was very very weak. He said doctors told him he had only about three months to live – liver cancer and other horrible things. But he was in a good mood. He said he had accepted death and it’s not worth panicking, it’s all very normal. I asked him if he had enough care, if he needed anything, he said no, he has a nurse and even a very special hospital bed that is very easy to control, no, he needs nothing. He says he’s writing a lot of poetry for a book which could be called “Poems from the Bed – Teaching About Death” (I may be misquoting) [posthumously Death and Fame]
He said, “Come and visit me”. I felt he had some special need for me to visit him.
I promised to visit him mid-next-week. His new apartment is all clustered he said, that’s very comfortable, a lot of paper stuff. Bob Dylan called and Hiro (Yamagata) called and cried. We talked for some twenty minutes and it wasn’t a sad conversation. I just couldn’t feel sad, hearing his voice so relaxed. Actually, we both laughed a lot, talking about it, talking about him having only three months to live and all of the yet (unpunished (sic)), unfinished business, which, we both agreed, was total nonsense anyway as you go from here to there. We laughed..(he) chuckled, with his familiar Allen chuckle. Anyway, it was not a sad conversation at all.
I would rather sum it up as happy conversation, strange as it might sound to some, (but that’s Allen’s special gift, I guess).
Now, three days later:
April 5th – Bill Morgan called, said “sit down”. I said, “Just say it” – “Allen died last night, 2.40 a.m. Funeral service, Monday 9 am to 1 pm – Shambhala Center, 118 West 22nd Street”
April 5th – Saturday 5 p.m. – There were some there of Allen’s friends when I came and four or five Tibetan monks sitting around a low tea-table chanting. Allen’s body was in his bed where he died, by the north wall of the room. Where the window draped blue, a light wind was moving the drapes gently, his head, west, head turned sideways, sort of towards us but not exactly, he was somewhere else. Rosebud was there and she turned on some lights for a minute because a part of the room, a long room where Allen was lying, was in semi-darkness. She did that so I could film Allen. He was sleeping and deep in thought, I thought, with a touch of romantic sadness in his face, but relaxed, (reminded me of Raphael lights, I don’t know why). The monks chanted all evening. Occasionally they held little conferences amongst themselves, trying, I guess, to determine if Allen’s spirit had really left the body, because nobody should touch his body until the spirit leaves it. But since the results were negative, the monks kept chanting and ringing bells and burning stuff etcetera, as we all sat around the room silent or talking quietly, Rosebud, Rani (Singh), Hiro, Patti (Smith), Anne (Waldman), Peter (Orlovsky), and a few others. Allen did not want, nor did the monks, to have any strangers or pets or tv around. They wanted Allen’s spirit to leave the body in quiet peace with only close friends around.
Peter, Peter Orlovsky, who said he himself was only sixty-eight, was deeply broken by it all, but he was happy at the same time, he was bent down in body but totally upright in spirit, I thought. He seemed to be completely somewhere else, only half aware of what was really happening. He was in some kind of blissful dream. It was about a quarter-to twelve [the next morning –sic?] when the monks decided that Allen’s spirit had really left the body and it was ok to remove it from the premises. Funeral people came, all neatly dressed and in a very matter-of-fact way, very professionally and respectfully wrapped up Allen’s body in the funeral shroud, placed it on the stretcher and wheeled it out.
It was about five or ten past ten midnight [again, some confusion, perhaps, with time?] I walked into the street. I caught a glimpse of the black limo on my video with Allen’s body in it. Then I saw Peter, so sweet, so sweet, with his hands put together for prayer. Then the limo began moving away and Peter waved “bye bye”
in the sweetest possible way, I have never seen anything so sweet. “Bye bye, Allen”. And the limo disappeared among the street lights, and Peter went to the 405 East 13th Street door and began searching for a key in his pocket. And this action, somehow, searching for a key in his pocket, after all that had happened, this seemed to me suddenly so incongruous, so out-of-place, (and at the same time so totally returning back to reality). I turned my video camera towards First Avenue. It was full of lights, taxis and the Lower East Side life. I walked towards it, my camera still running.
“I just wanted to close my little presentation reading with a memory of Allen. Somewhere in 1964 at the Filmmakers Cooperative which was at 414 Park Avenue South, there was Allen Ginsberg, a lot of other friends and there was Barbara Rubin – and Barbara Rubin turned to Allen and said, “Oh, you look ugly, but if you would cut off your beard, you would look beautiful”. Now Allen, being vain, and wanting to be beautiful, said, “Ok, fine, cut, cut it, cut it off, cut off my beard”.
And Barbara Rubin being Barbara Rubin got the scissors and chopped, right there, she chopped Allen’s beard, and Allen was beautiful! – and he was happy. And then he put the beard into a little box and put the scissors in it and put it on the shelf at the Filmmakers Cooperative. And years passed. I did not know what happened to it. I never talked about it or dreamt about it (the Cooperative was also my home). And one day I looked on my shelf. Among the books of Allen Ginsberg, books, there was this box -” Ah, this box! what is it I’m remembering?” – And I opened (it) and there was Allen Gnsberg’s beard – and there it is (displays box) – so Allen is with us right now! (and, of course, if you know something about DNA maybe you could recreate Allen! – and the scissors, she.. still.. that Barbara Rubin used shaving Allen’s nice beard. So he is with us. Yes. Thank you.
The beard-shaving story is presented on an earlier occasion – here
Jonas died in his home in Manhattan, aged 96, after several months of treatment for a debilitating blood disorder. He died peacefully. See John Leland‘s account of the last years of Jonas Mekas – here