A fly's shadow 11.17.2021

​Against red bark trunk

     A fly's shadow

lights on the shadow of a pine bough

              ---Allen Ginsberg, from Mostly Sitting Haiku, 1978​

 

​nothing but the shadow of dungarees 11.17.2021

​who disappeared into the volcanoes of Mexico leaving behind ​​nothing but the shadow of dungarees and the lava and ash of poetry scattered in fireplace Chicago --​Allen Ginsberg, Howl, ​​in reference to John Hoffman, whose poems were read by Philip Lamantia at The Six Gallery San Francisco 3119 Fillmore Street Cow Hollow October 7, 1955

 

a dead grey shadow against the sky 11.17.2021

​​Look at the Sunflower, he said, there was a dead gray shadow against the sky, big as a man, sitting dry on top of a pile of ancient sawdust— ​Jack Kerouac speaking to ​Allen Ginsberg, ​in Ginsberg's poem ​Sunflower Sutra (1955)

 

shadow changes into bone 11.17.2021

​“Shadow changes into bone,” was my Kerouackian motto, 1948, intending to say that eternal prophetic poetic intuition (shadow) will turn out to be real (bone). --Allen Ginsberg, Refrain (1948)