_________________ P O E M S by allen ginsberg This Form of Life Needs Sex On Neal's Ashes An Eastern Ballad _________________ Poems and illustrations excerpted with permission from Illuminated Poems by Allen Ginsberg with illustrations by Eric Drooker (Four Walls Eight Windows, 1996)

Rock Song I'm up in the lightning tower Blake is re-fighting Milton below African Americans yelling at Latinos With bombs crack wanna blow African Americans with babies at their breasts Europeans drinking coffee cashing checks Vietnamese & Chinese behaving correct Koreans and Texans thumping their chests I'm up in the lightning tower Could stay up here a hundred years Shouting orders thru a diamond megaphone Till the blood rain turns to humor tears I'm up in the lightning tower The spiritual war goes on There's a million Caesars climbing up the stairs I gotta fight them with one hard on I'm up in the lightning window I can see the blare of the bombs The noisier the surplus airplanes thunder The more I sit down calm Up on the lightning rooftop It's raining human bones and blood I haven't got a holy umbrella Is there anything I can do that's any good? I'm dancing on the lightning cloud I don't know how I got the power I kept hearing everybody screaming & lay down to sleep dream for one hour Lightning tower lightning ocean Lightning window, lightning cloud Lightning solitude lightning delusion Lightning consciousness in the crowd Journals 5/25/90