Kraj Majales (King Of May) poem – Allen Ginsberg

And the Communists have nothing to offer but fat cheeks and eyeglasses and

lying policemen

and the Capitalists proffer Napalm and money in green suitcases to the

Naked,

and the Communists create heavy industry but the heart is also heavy

and the beautiful engineers are all dead, the secret technicians conspire for

their own glamour

in the Future, in the Future, but now drink vodka and lament the Security

Forces,

and the Capitalists drink gin and whiskey on airplanes but let Indian brown

millions starve

and when Communist and Capitalist assholes tangle the Just man is arrested

or robbed or has his head cut off,

but not like Kabir, and the cigarette cough of the Just man above the clouds

in the bright sunshine is a salute to the health of the blue sky.

For I was arrested thrice in Prague, once for singing drunk on Narodni

street,

once knocked down on the midnight pavement by a mustached agent who

screamed out BOUZERANT,

once for losing my notebooks of unusual sex politics dream opinions,

and I was sent from Havana by planes by detectives in green uniform,

and I was sent from Prague by plane by detectives in Czechoslovakian

business suits,

Cardplayers out of Cezanne, the two strange dolls that entered Joseph K’s

room at morn

also entered mine and ate at my table, and examined my scribbles,

and followed me night and morn from the houses of the lovers to the cafes of

Centrum –

And I am the King of May, which is the power of sexual youth,

and I am the King of May, which is long hair of Adam and Beard of my

own body

and I am the King of May, which is Kraj Majales in the Czechoslovakian

tongue,

and I am the King of May, which is old Human poesy, and 100,000 people

chose my name,

and I am the King of May, and in a few minutes I will land at London

Airport,

and I am the King of May, naturally, for I am of Slavic parentage and a

Buddhist Jew

who whorships the Sacred Heart of Christ the blue body of Krishna the

straight back of Ram

the beads of Chango the Nigerian singing Shiva Shiva in a manner which

I have invented,

and the King of May is a middleeuropean honor, mine in the XX century

despite space ships and the Time Machine, because I have heard the voice of Blake

in a vision

and repeat that voice. And I am the King of May that sleeps with teenagers

laughing.

And I am the King of May, that I may be expelled from my Kingdom with

Honor, as of old,

To show the difference between Caesar’s Kingdom and the Kingdom of the

May of Man –

and I am the King of May because I touched my finger to my forehead

saluting

a luminous heavy girl trembling hands who said “one moment Mr. Ginsberg”

before a fat young Plainclothesman stepped between our bodies – I was

going to England –

and I am the King of May, in a giant jetplane touching Albion’s airfield

trembling in fear

as the plane roars to a landing on the gray concrete, shakes & expels air,

and rolls slowly to a stop under the clouds with part of blue heaven still

visible.

And tho’ I am the King of May, the Marxists have beat me upon the street,

kept me up all night in Police Station, followed me thru Springtime

Prague, detained me in secret and deported me from our kingdom by

airplane.

This I have written this poem on a jet seat in mid Heaven.