Elan that lifts me above the clouds <br />into pure space, timeless, yea eternal <br />Breath transmuted into words <br />Transmuted back to breath <br />in one hundred two hundred years <br />nearly Immortal, Sappho's 26 centuries <br />of cadenced breathing -- beyond time, clocks, empires, bodies, cars, <br />chariots, rocket ships skyscrapers, Nation empires <br />brass walls, polished marble, Inca Artwork <br />of the mind -- but where's it come from? <br />Inspiration? The muses drawing breath for you? God? <br />Nah, don't believe it, you'll get entangled in Heaven or Hell -- <br />Guilt power, that makes the heart beat wake all night <br />flooding mind with space, echoing through future cities, Megalopolis or <br />Cretan village, Zeus' birth cave Lassithi Plains -- Otsego County <br />farmhouse, Kansas front porch? <br />Buddha's a help, promises ordinary mind no nirvana -- <br />coffee, alcohol, cocaine, mushrooms, marijuana, laughing gas? <br />Nope, too heavy for this lightness lifts the brain into blue sky <br />at May dawn when birds start singing on East 12th street -- <br />Where does it come from, where does it go forever?<br /><br />Allen Ginsberg<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/five-a-m/
