Beat Postcard #5: Ginsberg Ruined

Allen Ginsberg, Mexico 1954
leaning on a stick amidst ancient Mayan ruins

What ruination
have you paid homage to?
What crumbled dreaming is worth your pause?

Ginsberg is wistful in Mexico, the second America.

I heard Rilke visited ruins, too, only to pine for them upon returning home.

You.

Where would you stand and hope, pine? Where in your world?

Let us begin on our back stoops, where the view of the scrap pile will soon be replaced by comfortable lofts. Benchmarks for the elimination of pining.

Build our cities first on the inside.