Wichita Vortex Sutra 3
Allen Ginsberg
I’m an old man now, and a lonesome man in Kansas
    but not afraid
        to speak my lonesomeness in a car,
        because not only my lonesomeness
            it’s Ours, all over America,
                O tender fellows—
            & spoken lonesomeness is Prophecy
            in the moon 100 years ago or in
                the middle of Kansas now.
It’s not the vast plains mute our mouths
            that fill at midnite with ecstatic language
        when our trembling bodies hold each other
            breast to breast on a mattress—
    Not the empty sky that hides
                the feeling from our faces
    nor our skirts and trousers that conceal
        the bodylove emanating in a glow of beloved skin,
            white smooth abdomen down to the hair
                between our legs,
    It’s not a God that bore us that forbid
        our Being, like a sunny rose
                all red with naked joy
        between our eyes & bellies, yes
All we do is for this frightened thing
        we call Love, want and lack—
    fear that we aren’t the one whose body could be
        beloved of all the brides of Kansas City,
        kissed all over by every boy of Wichita—
    O but how many in their solitude weep aloud like me—
        On the bridge over Republican River
            almost in tears to know
                how to speak the right language—
        on the frosty broad road
            uphill between highway embankments
        I search for the language
                that is also yours—
        almost all our language has been taxed by war.
Radio antennae high tension
    wires ranging from Junction City across the plains—
    highway cloverleaf sunk in a vast meadow
        lanes curving past Abilene
            to Denver filled with old
                heroes of love—
        to Wichita where McClure’s mind
            burst into animal beauty
            drunk, getting laid in a car
                in a neon misted street
                    15 years ago—
    to Independence where the old man’s still alive
    who loosed the bomb that’s slaved all human consciousness
        and made the body universe a place of fear—
Now, speeding along the empty plain,
        no giant demon machine
            visible on the horizon
    but tiny human trees and wooden houses at the sky’s edge
        I claim my birthright!
            reborn forever as long as Man
                in Kansas or other universe—Joy
        reborn after the vast sadness of the War Gods!
A lone man talking to myself, no house in the brown vastness to hear
        imagining that throng of Selves
            that make this nation one body of Prophecy
                languaged by Declaration as Pursuit of
                    Happiness!
I call all Powers of imagination
    to my side in this auto to make Prophecy,
                    all Lords
        of human kingdoms to come
Shambu Bharti Baba naked covered with ash
        Khaki Baba fat-bellied mad with the dogs
Dehorahava Baba who moans Oh how wounded, How wounded
    Sitaram Onkar Das Thakur who commands
                    give up your desire
Satyananda who raises two thumbs in tranquility
    Kali Pada Guha Roy whose yoga drops before the void
            Shivananda who touches the breast and says OM
Srimata Krishnaji of Brindaban who says take for your guru
    William Blake the invisible father of English visions
    Sri Ramakrishna master of ecstasy eyes
        half closed who only cries for his mother
Chitanya arms upraised singing & dancing his own praise
    merciful Chango judging our bodies
        Durga-Ma covered with blood
            destroyer of battlefield illusions
        million faced Tathagata gone past suffering
    Preserver Harekrishna returning in the age of pain
Sacred Heart my Christ acceptable
        Allah the compassionate one
                Jaweh Righteous One
            all Knowledge-Princes of Earth-man, all
    ancient Seraphim of heavenly Desire, Devas, yogis
            & holymen I chant to—
                Come to my lone presence
                    into this Vortex named Kansas,
I lift my voice aloud,
    make Mantra of American language now,
            I here declare the end of the War!
                Ancient days’ Illusion!—
        and pronounce words beginning my own millennium.
Let the States tremble,
    let the nation weep,
        let Congress legislate its own delight,
            let the President execute his own desire—
this Act done by my own voice,
                nameless Mystery—
published to my own senses,
        blissfully received by my own form
    approved with pleasure by my sensations
        manifestation of my very thought
        accomplished in my own imagination
            all realms within my consciousness fulfilled
    60 miles from Wichita
                near El Dorado,
                    The Golden One,
in chill earthly mist
    houseless brown farmland plains rolling heavenward
                        in every direction
one midwinter afternoon Sunday called the day of the Lord—
    Pure Spring Water gathered in one tower
            where Florence is
                    set on a hill,
            stop for tea & gas
    Cars passing their messages along country crossroads
        to populaces cement-networked on flatness,
                    giant white mist on earth
        and a Wichita Eagle-Beacon headlines
        “Kennedy Urges Cong Get Chair in Negotiations”
The War is gone,
    Language emerging on the motel news stand,
                    the right magic
        Formula, the language known
    in the back of the mind before, now in black print
                    daily consciousness
Eagle News Services Saigon—
    Headline Surrounded Vietcong Charge Into Fire Fight
        the suffering not yet ended
                    for others
        The last spasms of the dragon of pain
                shoot thru the muscles
            a crackling around the eyeballs
            of a sensitive yellow boy by a muddy wall
Continued from page one area
    after the Marines killed 256 Vietcong captured 31
    ten day operation Harvest Moon last December
                Language language
    U.S. Military Spokesmen
            Language language
                    Cong death toll
        has soared to 100 in First Air Cavalry
        Division’s Sector of
                Language language
            Operation White Wing near Bong Son
Some of the
    Language language
            Communist
                Language language soldiers
charged so desperately
    they were struck with six or seven bullets before they fell
    Language Language M-60 Machine Guns
            Language language in La Drang Valley
    the terrain is rougher infested with leeches and scorpions
            The war was over several hours ago!
Oh at last again the radio opens
    blue Invitations!
        Angelic Dylan singing across the nation
            “When all your children start to resent you
            Won’t you come see me, Queen Jane?”
    His youthful voice making glad
                the brown endless meadows
    His tenderness penetrating aether,
        soft prayer on the airwaves,
            Language language, and sweet music too
            even unto thee,
                hairy flatness!
            even unto thee
                despairing Burns!
Future speeding on swift wheels
        straight to the heart of Wichita!
Now radio voices cry population hunger world
                if unhappy people
        waiting for Man to be born
                O man in America!
    you certainly smell good
                the radio says
    passing mysterious families of winking towers
    grouped round a Quonset-hut on a hillock—
        feed storage or military fear factory here?
Sensitive City, Ooh! Hamburger & Skelley’s Gas
            lights feed man and machine,
    Kansas Electric Substation aluminum robot
        signals thru thin antennae towers
        above the empty football field
                    at Sunday dusk
to a solitary derrick that pumps oil from the unconscious
                working night & day
    & factory gas-flares edge a huge golf course
        where tired businessmen can come and play—
Cloverleaf, Merging Traffic East Wichita turnoff
            McConnell Airforce Base
                    nourishing the City—
    Lights rising in the suburbs
    Supermarket Texaco brilliance starred
            over streetlamp vertebrae on Kellogg,
        green jeweled traffic lights
            confronting the windshield,
Centertown ganglion entered!
        Crowds of autos moving with their lightshine,
        signbulbs winking in the driver’s eyeball—
    The human nest collected, neon lit,
                and sunburst signed
        for business as usual, except on the Lord’s Day—
    Redeemer Lutheran’s three crosses lit on the lawn
                reminder of our sins
    and Titsworth offers insurance on Hydraulic
    by De Voors Guard’s Mortuary for outmoded bodies
                of the human vehicle
        which no Titsworth of insurance will customize for resale—
So home, traveler, past the newspaper language factory
    under Union Station railroad bridge on Douglas
    to the center of the Vortex, calmly returned
        to Hotel Eaton
Carry Nation began the war on Vietnam here
            with an angry smashing ax
                attacking Wine—
    Here fifty years ago, by her violence
began a vortex of hatred that defoliated the Mekong Delta—
    Proud Wichita! vain Wichita
        cast the first stone!—
                That murdered my mother
        who died of the communist anticommunist psychosis
            in the madhouse one decade long ago
    complaining about wires of masscommunication in her head
            and phantom political voices in the air
                besmirching her girlish character.
    Many another has suffered death and madness
            in the Vortex from Hydraulic
                to the end of 17th –enough!
The war is over now—
    Except for the souls
            held prisoner in Niggertown
still pining for love of your tender white bodies O children of Wichita!
Write the lyrics for a misc song made in 1966, titled "Wichita Vortex Sutra 3", by artist "Allen Ginsberg".