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biography | Catalan translation

John GironoJohn Giorno
three poems


John Giorno will be reading these poems at
the Centre de Cultura Contemporània de Barcelona (CCCB),   c/ Montalegre 5, on January 13th at 8:30.

 

JUST SAY NO TO FAMILY VALUES

On a day when
you're walking
down the street
and you see
a hearse
with a coffin,
followed by
a flower car
and limos,
you know the day
is auspicious,
your plans are going to be
successful;
but on a day when
you see a bride and groom
and wedding party,
watch out,
be careful,
it might be a bad sign.

Just say no
to family values,
and don't quit
your day job.

Drugs
are sacred
substances,
and some drugs
are very sacred substances,
please praise them
for somewhat liberating
the mind.

Tobacco
is a sacred substance
to some,
and even though you've
stopped smoking,
show a little respect.

Alcohol
is totally great,
let us celebrate
the glorious qualities
of booze,
and I had
a good time
being with you.

Just
do it,
just don't
not do it,
just do it.

Christian
fundamentalists,
and fundamentalists
in general,
are viruses,
and they're killing us,
multiplying
and mutating,
and they destroying us,
now, you know,
you got to give
strong medicine
to combat
a virus.

Who's buying?
good acid,
I'm flying,
slipping
and sliding,
slurping
and slamming,
I'm sinking,
dipping
and dripping,
and squirting
inside you;
never
fast forward
a come shot;
milk, milk,
lemonade,
round the corner
where the chocolate's made;
I love to see
your face
when you're suffering.

Do it
with anybody
you want,
whatever
you want,
for as long as you want,
any place,
any place,
when it's possible,
and try to be
safe;
in a situation where
you must abandon
yourself
completely
beyond all concepts.

Twat throat
and cigarette dew,
that floor
would ruin
a sponge mop,
she's the queen
of great bliss;
light
in your heart,
flowing up
a crystal channel
into your eyes
and out
hooking
the world
with compassion.

Just
say
no
to family
values.

We don't have to say No
to family values,
cause we never
think about them;
just
do it,
just make
love
and compassionBurroughs:foto Gus Van Sant.




THE DEATH OF WILLIAM BURROUGHS


William died on August 2, 1997, Saturday at 6:30 in the afternoon from complications from a massive heart attack he'd had the day before. He was 83 years old. I was with William Burroughs when he died, and it was one of the best times I ever had with him.

Doing Tibetan Nyingma Buddhist meditation practices, I absorbed William's consiousness into my heart. It seemed as a bright white light, blinding but muted, empty. His consiousness passing through me. A gentle shooting star came in my heart and up the central channel, and out the top of my head to a pure field of great clarity and bliss. It was very powerful - William Burroughs resting in great equanimity, and the vast empty expanse of primordial wisdom mind.

I was staying in William's house, doing my meditation practices for him, trying to maintain good conditions and dissolve any obstacles that might be arising for him at that very moment in the bardo. Now, I had to do it for him.

What Went Into William Burroughs Coffin With His Dead Body

About ten in the morning on Tuesday, August 6, 1997, James Grauerholz and Ira Silverberg came to William's house to pick out the clothes for the funeral director to put on William's corpse. His clothes were in a closet in my room. And we picked the things to go into William's coffin and grave, accompaning him on his journey in the underworld.

His most favorite gun, a 38 special snub-nose, fully loaded with five shots. He called it, "The snubby." The gun was my idea. "This is very important!" William always said you can never be too well armed in any situation. Of his more than 80 world-class guns, it was his favorite. He often wore it on his belt during the day, and slept with it, fully loaded, on his right side, under the bedsheet, every night for fifteen years.

Grey fedora. He always wore a hat when he went out. We wanted his consciousness to feel perfectly at ease, dead.

His favorite cane, a sword cane made of hickory with a light rosewood finish.

Sport jacket, black with a dark green tint. We rummaged through the closet and it was the best of his shabby clothes, and smelling sweetly of him.

Blue jeans, the least worn ones were the only ones clean.

Red bandana. He always kept one in his back pocket.

Jockey underwear and socks.

Black shoes. The ones he wore when he performed. I thought the old brown ones, that he wore all the time, because they were comfortable. James Grauerholz insisted, "There's an old CIA slang that says getting a new assignment is getting new shoes."

White shirt. We had bought it in a men's shop in Beverly Hills in 1981 on The Red Night Tour. It was his best shirt, all the others were a bit ragged, and even though it had become tight, he'd lost alot of weight, and we thought it would fit. James said, "Don't they slit it down the back anyway."

Necktie, blue, hand painted by William.

Moroccan vest, green velvet with gold brocade trim, given him by Brion Gysin, twenty-five years before.
I
n his lapel button hole, the rosette of the French government's
Commandeur Des Arts et Lettres, and the rosette of the American Academy Of Arts and Letters, honors which William very much appreciated.

A gold coin in his pants pocket. A gold 19th Century Indian head five dollar piece, symbolizing all wealth. William would have enough money to buy his way in the underworld.

His eyeglasses in his outside breast pocket.

A ball point pen, the kind he always used. "He was a writer!", and wrote long hand.

A joint of really good grass.

Heroin. Before the funeral service, Grant Hart slipped a small white paper packet into William's pocket. "Nobody's going to bust him." said Grant. William, bejewelled with all his adornments, was travelling in the underworld.

I kissed him. An early LP album of us together, 1975, was called Biting Off The Tongue Of A Corpse. I kissed him on the lips, but I didn't do it. . .And I should of done it.


DEMON IN THE DETAILS

For William Burroughs, Allen Ginsberg, Brion Gysin and some others

Once upon a time,
these
friends
loved
each other
very much,
and they made a vow
to stay together
until they all
attained
Enlightenment,
and lifetime
after lifetime,
and endless
re-births,
and doing practice,
they all realized
the absolute
empty
true nature
of mind.
They were so
happy
and overjoyed,
they started
dancing,
and dancing,
and danced
and danced,
they were so happy,
in the shocked
recognition
of emptiness
and compassion,
they kept
on dancing,
dancing
and dancing,
and they danced away
all their flesh
and skin,
until there was
nothing
left
but their bones,
and they kept dancing
in their bones,
dancing
skeltons
dancing skeltons.

Smooth
skulls
and speeding
fingers,
smiling
teeth
and wide eyed
holes,
sliding
phymas
and cracking
shins,
spinning
and sparkling
spinal chords,
shouting
ribs
and singing
jaws,
sqwirming
pelvises,
shivering
bones
and shaking
bones;
I want to
jump
into your heart,
I'm gonna come
in your heart
from here.

When it gets to hot
for comfort
and you can't get
ice cream cones,
taint
no sin,
to take off
your skin
and dance around
in your bones
taint no sin,
to take off your skin
and dance around
in your bones.

You generated
enough
compassion
to fill the world,
and now,
all of you,
resting in
great equanimity,
have accomplished
great clarity
and great bliss,
and the vast
empty
expanse
of Primordially pure
Wisdom Mind.

But our friends
were not
totally,
not completely
Englightened
beings;
and sometimes
a hundred thousand years
in one of the
fabulous
god worlds
or highest
heavens,
is one year
here
or a couple of years here
in ours,
so much
for that.

Now,
at this very moment,
their consciousnesses
are terrorized,
the bells
of hell
the bells of hell
the bells of hell,
they have
cut off
your head,
and are shitting
down
your throat,
the worst
is at this moment
happening,
the very worst,
is happening
now,
life
goes on.


© John Giorno
These poems  may not be archived or distributed further without the author's express permission. Please see our conditions of use.

Bio

The originator of Performance Poetry, John Giorno elevated Spoken Word to a high Art Form. One of the most innovative and influential figures of 20th Century poetry, John Giorno's career spans forty years. Giorno's work - written, performed, recorded and presented - has forever changed the way the world views poetry .

His most recent book You Got To Burn To Shine (Serpent's Tail, 1994) details his deeply personal memoirs, including the story of his relationship with Andy Warhol (Giorno was the star of Warhol's first film, Sleep, 1963), his anonymous sexual encounter with Keith Haring (he and Keith later became good friends), and his thoughts about the Tibetan Buddhist understanding of death in the age of AIDS.

Founded in 1965, Giorno Poetry Systems innovated the use of technology in poetry, working with electronic and multi-media, and creating new venues, connecting poetry with new audiences. Giorno Poetry Systems has released over forty LPs and CDs of poets working with performance and music, numerous cassettes, videopaks, poetry videos and film.

The AIDS Treatment Project, begun in 1984, is John Giorno's attempt to combat, with compassion, the AIDS epidemic catastrophe.

navigation:                         barcelona review #16                       January - February 2000
-Fiction Juan Abreu: Tendernesschip
Guillaume Dustan: Serge the Beauty & Rendezvous
Len Kruger: Hotline
Norman Lock: In the Time of the Comet
Richard Peabody: Essence of Mitchum
-Poetry John Giorno: Three Poems
-Article January and February in Barcelona
-Quiz Federico García Lorca - win a book
Answers to last issue's Samuel Beckett Quiz
-Regular Features Book Reviews
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