Ginsberg’s “Plutonian Ode”

Plutonian Ode

I
What new element before us unborn in nature?

Is there a new thing under the Sun?

At last inquisitive Whitman a modern epic, detonative,

Scientific theme

First penned unmindful by Doctor Seaborg with poisonous hand, named for Death’s planet through the

sea beyond Uranus

whose chthonic ore fathers this magma-teared Lord of

Hades, Sire of avenging Furies, billionaire Hell-King worshipped once

with black sheep throats cut, priests’s face averted from

underground mysteries in single temple at Eleusis,

Spring-green Persephone nuptialed to his inevitable

Shade, Demeter mother of asphodel weeping dew,

her daughter stored in salty caverns under white snow,

black hail, grey winter rain or Polar ice, immemorable seasons before

Fish flew in Heaven, before a Ram died by the starry

bush, before the Bull stamped sky and earth

or Twins inscribed their memories in clay or Crab’d flood

washed memory from the skull, or Lion sniffed the

lilac breeze in Eden–

Before the Great Year began turning its twelve signs,

ere constellations wheeled for twenty-four thousand sunny years

slowly round their axis in Sagittarius, one hundred

sixty-seven thousand times returning to this night

Radioactive Nemesis were you there at the beginning

black dumb tongueless unsmelling blast of Disillusion?

I manifest your Baptismal Word after four billion years

I guess your birthday in Earthling Night, I salute your

dreadful presence last majestic as the Gods,

Sabaot, Jehova, Astapheus, Adonaeus, Elohim, Iao,

Ialdabaoth, Aeon from Aeon born ignorant in an

Abyss of Light,

Sophia’s reflections glittering thoughtful galaxies, whirlpools of starspume silver-thin as hairs of Einstein!

Father Whitman I celebrate a matter that renders Self oblivion!

Grand Subject that annihilates inky hands & pages’ prayers, old orators’ inspired Immortalities,

I begin your chant, openmouthed exhaling into spacious

sky over silent mills at Hanford, Savannah River,

Rocky Flats, Pantex, Burlington, Albuquerque

I yell thru Washington, South Carolina, Colorado,

Texas, Iowa, New Mexico,

Where nuclear reactors creat a new Thing under the

Sun, where Rockwell war-plants fabricate this death stuff trigger in nitrogen baths,

Hanger-Silas Mason assembles the terrified weapon

secret by ten thousands, & where Manzano Mountain boasts to store

its dreadful decay through two hundred forty millenia

while our Galaxy spirals around its nebulous core.

I enter your secret places with my mind, I speak with

your presence, I roar your Lion Roar with mortal mouth.

One microgram inspired to one lung, ten pounds of

heavy metal dust adrift slow motion over grey Alps

the breadth of the planet, how long before your radiance

speeds blight and death to sentient beings?

Enter my body or not I carol my spirit inside you,

Unnaproachable Weight,

O heavy heavy Element awakened I vocalize your consciousness to six worlds

I chant your absolute Vanity. Yeah monster of Anger

birthed in fear O most

Ignorant matter ever created unnatural to Earth! Delusion

of metal empires!

Destroyer of lying Scientists! Devourer of covetous

Generals, Incinerator of Armies & Melter of Wars!

Judgement of judgements, Divine Wind over vengeful

nations, Molester of Presidents, Death-Scandal of

Capital politics! Ah civilizations stupidly industrious!

Canker-Hex on multitudes learned or illiterate! Manu-factured Spectre of human reason! O solidified

imago of practicioner in Black Arts

I dare your reality, I challenge your very being! I publish your cause and effect!

I turn the wheel of Mind on your three hundred tons!

Your name enters mankind’s ear! I embody your

ultimate powers!

My oratory advances on your vaunted Mystery! This

breath dispels your braggart fears! I sing your

form at last

behind your concrete & iron walls inside your fortress

of rubber & translucent silicon shields in filtered

cabinets and baths of lathe oil,

My voice resounds through robot glove boxes & ignot

cans and echoes in electric vaults inert of atmosphere,

I enter with spirit out loud into your fuel rod drums

underground on soundless thrones and beds of lead

O density! This weightless anthem trumpets transcendent

through hidden chambers and breaks through

iron doors into the Infernal Room!

Over your dreadful vibration this measured harmony

floats audible, these jubilant tones are honey and

milk and wine-sweet water

Poured on the stone black floor, these syllables are

barley groats I scatter on the Reactor’s core,

I call your name with hollow vowels, I psalm your Fate

close by, my breath near deathless ever at your side

to Spell your destiny, I set this verse prophetic on your

mausoleum walls to seal you up Eternally with

Diamond Truth! O doomed Plutonium.
II
The Bar surveys Plutonian history from midnight

lit with Mercury Vapor streetlamps till in dawn’s

early light

he contemplates a tranquil politic spaced out between

Nations’ thought-forms proliferating bureaucratic

& horrific arm’d, Satanic industries projected sudden

with Five Hundred Billion Dollar Strength

around the world same time this text is set in Boulder,

Colorado before front range of Rocky Mountains

twelve miles north of Rocky Flats Nuclear Facility in

United States of North America, Western Hemisphere

of planet Earth six months and fourteen days around

our Solar System in a Spiral Galaxy

the local year after Dominion of the last God nineteen

hundred seventy eight

Completed as yellow hazed dawn clouds brighten East,

Denver city white below

Blue sky transparent rising empty deep & spacious to a

morning star high over the balcony

above some autos sat with wheels to curb downhill

from Flatiron’s jagged pine ridge,

sunlit mountain meadows sloped to rust-red sandstone

cliffs above brick townhouse roofs

as sparrows waked whistling through Marine Street’s

summer green leafed trees.
III
This ode to you O Poets and Orators to come, you

father Whitman as I join your side, you Congress

and American people,

you present meditators, spiritual friends & teachers,

you O Master of the Diamond Arts,

Take this wheel of syllables in hand, these vowels and

consonants to breath’s end

take this inhalation of black poison to your heart, breath

out this blessing from your breast on our creation

forests cities oceans deserts rocky flats and mountains

in the Ten Directions pacify with exhalation,

enrich this Plutonian Ode to explode its empty thunder

through earthen thought-worlds

Magnetize this howl with heartless compassion, destroy

this mountain of Plutonium with ordinary mind

and body speech,

thus empower this Mind-guard spirit

gone out, gone out, gone beyond, gone beyond me, Wake space,

so Ah!