Boris Oblesow

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Literature

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Film

It's always been my very favorite Beatnik poem. I memorized it and will recite it upon request for anyone who asks, and here it is:

a torn sun where she lets go
the naive audacity
of her mouth.

in his mouth
her dust of black seeds
thin murmur of the silkbird's killed wound.

void
the mind clears where shame.
the day-wasp cries once raucous
3-eyed
black pearl

the mind's star unhinged
disrobes
a brown bear eyeing honey
where a tinkle of birds
mumble
in the blue hair
of the mountain.

In a sense I'm a little dishonest about Boris Oblesow; I think it's at once an incredible and evocative work of art and at the same time I think it's almost a parody of the public perception of the meaningless beatnik poem. But it's the only poem I've ever memorized of my own free will and my favorite poem to recite.

I found it in The Beat Scene, and I also think my enthusiasm for the poem may have been somewhat influenced by the beautiful Fred McDarrah photograph of Barbara Ellen feeding the pigeons next to it.