...end
... of a trying-not-to-answer-the-phone week. I am A Victim Of The Telephone can be found in the Allen Ginsberg collection Planet News, published in 1968. That was the year of the infamous Democratic Convention in Chicago. While the police clubbed demonstrators left, right and centre, Ginsberg sat calmly in the middle of the turmoil chanting the Buddhist mantra "Om".
I am A Victim Of The TelephoneAlways the telephone linked to all the hearts of the world beating at once
crying my husband's gone my boyfriend's busted forever my poetry was rejected
won't you come over for money and please won't you write me a piece of bullshit
How are you dear can you come out to Easthampton we're
all here bathing in the ocean we're all so lonely and I lay
back on my pallet contemplating $50 phone
bill, broke, drowsy, anxious, my heart fearful of the
fingers dialing, the deaths, the singing of telephone bells
ringing at dawn ringing all afternoon ringing up
midnight ringing now forever.Allen Ginsberg (1926-1997)
"When I lift the soupspoon to my lips, the phone on the floor begins purring..." Forty years ago, Allen Ginsberg foresaw the ubiquity of the phone. There is no escaping it anymore. Not for a week. Not for even a day.
