In 2020, when the world fell from grace and the worst of what a human can be showed through, in my yearly reading of Allen Ginsberg’s ‘Howl’, I took a brave move and wrote a poem entitled, ‘The Last Howl’. I decided to call it the last because I had feelings of ‘this is the way the world ends’.
It’s a big responsibility writing a poem after a groundbreaking poem like Howl. But, it was genuine, I thought it is time I shared it.
The Last Howl
I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by the spleen Fighting against one another on the invisible wars we've been put through Distracted by the artificial paradises and golden pot chimaeras All the legends are gone since the death of the jazz No Blake-light to be at the mercy of or even an Ode on the trash To sustain me in case another crisis blow on the collective I saw the best hopes of my generation explode on a failed spaceship Rummaging life possibilities beyond the blue For there are no more fire exits on the matters of the matter But if the code can convey the outlines of our hollowness They would get to know who howls louder on Earth Not to the moon, though, no. Not to the heavenly dynamo In the machinery of night We lost our senses when the second wave of madness raised Yet, it's no more the concepts and dead idols who us unite The sun had its last tempest reach the source of all shades Human bond since so found its foundation in rage I saw the best landscapes of my generation commit suicide In an attempt to escape the bad fortune suffered by the culture I prayed to the wind, water and fire to spare the dream Ah, land of dreams, while you are not safe, I am not safe I can no longer recall the petite sensations to the scene Pater Omnipotens Aeterna Deus, finitus (Nothing is almighty down the neoteric anfractuous waves) I've seen the best lovers of my generation silenced by the hate My rose garden night full of guards expecting my least breach And they would inspect my mouth, my hands and my blood To make sure I'm not kneeling down to the enemy That's how they burn veil that protects freedom from the prompt That's how they dictate love and how I should portray That's how they have my lovemaking wasted But I still have my Bonnie & Clyde fantasies kept An act of darkness amidst the crossfire, love will raise I saw the best souls of my generation stuck in space and time I lost my pals, I had to find my cantilena on the rhymes Disconnect all the screens or I would end up blind Like whenever the point is reversed by the line By now, not even Maloch would want us a praise Our withered souls are chemically costumed in carbonate I wish I could look for refuge on that dreadful typewriter For tired poets, but Rockland is sound and sober So, in a mortal quiescent complaint here I howl, here I craze I saw the best angels of my generation abdicate
(pause)
Love,
A