I


What new element before us unborn in nature? Is there

        a new thing under the Sun?

At last inquisitive Whitman a modern epic, detonative,

        Scientific theme

First penned unmindful by Doctor Seaborg with poison-

        ous hand, named for Death's planet through the 

        sea beyond Uranus

whose chthonic ore fathers this magma-teared Lord of 

        Hades, Sire of avenging Furies, billionaire Hell-

        King worshipped once

with black sheep throats cut, priests's face averted from

        underground mysteries in single temple at Eleusis,

Spring-green Persephone nuptialed to his inevitable

        Shade, Demeter mother of asphodel weeping dew,

her daughter stored in salty caverns under white snow, 

        black hail, grey winter rain or Polar ice, immemor-

        able seasons before

Fish flew in Heaven, before a Ram died by the starry

        bush, before the Bull stamped sky and earth

or Twins inscribed their memories in clay or Crab'd

        flood

washed memory from the skull, or Lion sniffed the

        lilac breeze in Eden--

Before the Great Year began turning its twelve signs,

        ere constellations wheeled for twenty-four thousand

        sunny years

slowly round their axis in Sagittarius, one hundred 

        sixty-seven thousand times returning to this night



Radioactive Nemesis were you there at the beginning 

        black dumb tongueless unsmelling blast of Disil-

        lusion?

I manifest your Baptismal Word after four billion years

I guess your birthday in Earthling Night, I salute your

        dreadful presence last majestic as the Gods,

Sabaot, Jehova, Astapheus, Adonaeus, Elohim, Iao, 

        Ialdabaoth, Aeon from Aeon born ignorant in an

        Abyss of Light,

Sophia's reflections glittering thoughtful galaxies, whirl-

        pools of starspume silver-thin as hairs of Einstein!

Father Whitman I celebrate a matter that renders Self

        oblivion!

Grand Subject that annihilates inky hands & pages'

        prayers, old orators' inspired Immortalities,

I begin your chant, openmouthed exhaling into spacious

        sky over silent mills at Hanford, Savannah River,

        Rocky Flats, Pantex, Burlington, Albuquerque

I yell thru Washington, South Carolina, Colorado, 

        Texas, Iowa, New Mexico,

Where nuclear reactors creat a new Thing under the 

        Sun, where Rockwell war-plants fabricate this death

        stuff trigger in nitrogen baths,

Hanger-Silas Mason assembles the terrified weapon

        secret by ten thousands, & where Manzano Moun-

        tain boasts to store

its dreadful decay through two hundred forty millenia

        while our Galaxy spirals around its nebulous core.

I enter your secret places with my mind, I speak with 

        your presence, I roar your Lion Roar with mortal

        mouth.

One microgram inspired to one lung, ten pounds of 

        heavy metal dust adrift slow motion over grey

        Alps

the breadth of the planet, how long before your radiance

        speeds blight and death to sentient beings?

Enter my body or not I carol my spirit inside you,

        Unnaproachable Weight,

O heavy heavy Element awakened I vocalize your con-

        sciousness to six worlds

I chant your absolute Vanity.  Yeah monster of Anger

        birthed in fear O most

Ignorant matter ever created unnatural to Earth! Delusion

        of metal empires!

Destroyer of lying Scientists! Devourer of covetous

        Generals, Incinerator of Armies & Melter of Wars!

Judgement of judgements, Divine Wind over vengeful 

        nations, Molester of Presidents, Death-Scandal of

        Capital politics! Ah civilizations stupidly indus-

        trious!

Canker-Hex on multitudes learned or illiterate! Manu-

        factured Spectre of human reason! O solidified

        imago of practicioner in Black Arts

I dare your reality, I challenge your very being! I 

        publish your cause and effect!

I turn the wheel of Mind on your three hundred tons!

        Your name enters mankind's ear! I embody your

        ultimate powers!

My oratory advances on your vaunted Mystery! This 

        breath dispels your braggart fears! I sing your 

        form at last

behind your concrete & iron walls inside your fortress

        of rubber & translucent silicon shields in filtered

        cabinets and baths of lathe oil,

My voice resounds through robot glove boxes & ignot 

        cans and echoes in electric vaults inert of atmo-

        sphere,

I enter with spirit out loud into your fuel rod drums

        underground on soundless thrones and beds of

        lead

O density! This weightless anthem trumpets transcendent 

        through hidden chambers and breaks through 

        iron doors into the Infernal Room!

Over your dreadful vibration this measured harmony        

        floats audible, these jubilant tones are honey and 

        milk and wine-sweet water

Poured on the stone black floor, these syllables are

        barley groats I scatter on the Reactor's core, 

I call your name with hollow vowels, I psalm your Fate

        close by, my breath near deathless ever at your

        side

to Spell your destiny, I set this verse prophetic on your

        mausoleum walls to seal you up Eternally with

        Diamond Truth!  O doomed Plutonium.



                        II



The Bar surveys Plutonian history from midnight 

        lit with Mercury Vapor streetlamps till in dawn's 

        early light

he contemplates a tranquil politic spaced out between 

        Nations' thought-forms proliferating bureaucratic

& horrific arm'd, Satanic industries projected sudden

        with Five Hundred Billion Dollar Strength

around the world same time this text is set in Boulder,

        Colorado before front range of Rocky Mountains

twelve miles north of Rocky Flats Nuclear Facility in 

        United States of North America, Western Hemi-

        sphere

of planet Earth six months and fourteen days around

        our Solar System in a Spiral Galaxy

the local year after Dominion of the last God nineteen 

        hundred seventy eight

Completed as yellow hazed dawn clouds brighten East,

        Denver city white below

Blue sky transparent rising empty deep & spacious to a 

        morning star high over the balcony 

above some autos sat with wheels to curb downhill 

        from Flatiron's jagged pine ridge,

sunlit mountain meadows sloped to rust-red sandstone

        cliffs above brick townhouse roofs

as sparrows waked whistling through Marine Street's

        summer green leafed trees.



                        III

                        

This ode to you O Poets and Orators to come, you

        father Whitman as I join your side, you Congress

        and American people,

you present meditators, spiritual friends & teachers,

        you O Master of the Diamond Arts,

Take this wheel of syllables in hand, these vowels and 

        consonants to breath's end

take this inhalation of black poison to your heart, breath

        out this blessing from your breast on our creation 

forests cities oceans deserts rocky flats and mountains 

        in the Ten Directions pacify with exhalation,

enrich this Plutonian Ode to explode its empty thunder

        through earthen thought-worlds

Magnetize this howl with heartless compassion, destroy

        this mountain of Plutonium with ordinary mind

        and body speech,

thus empower this Mind-guard spirit gone out, gone

        out, gone beyond, gone beyond me, Wake space,

        so Ah!

       
						                                  July 14, 1978


Plutonium Ode.
Allen Ginsberg, © 1978.
Fair use by Electronetwork.org