Dear Allen Ginsberg,

I wish you could come back

So you could see these 21st century have-it alls

who think there's always something that lacks..

They say, “Art is a dying field.”

And I wish you could throw

the existential fire at them with,

“Artists die

but,their creation shall live forever.”

 

At a family dinner I was asked "So you're a writer?!"

The idea gleamed in a color I couldn't see yet.

Yet, my drunk cousin's eyes lit up

He must have seen something

that my 17 years can't.

He saw the possibilities!

And as I drown

in the probabilities

of my starvation rate being higher

than my sunflower salaries

 

Yes, Allen.

Sunflower numbers.

Sunflower apartments.

Sunflower drugs.

Sunflower cities.

As a flower, naturally

those will wither

then, they will

die.

 

Maybe..

artists aren't flowers.

We're gardens

constantly watering our own soil,

planting new seeds for every dead plant..

 

The dead plant is us included.

 

Ginsberg, we still need you.

Resurrect from the depths you

spent a lifetime delving into..

underground, that's where you are..

Aren't you?

Rise

that sunflower scepter!!! Make us all come

Alive again!

Why, art hasn't died because it can't be killed

and death would mean it had lived

and that would mean it's something

as fickle as human existence.

..But, tell them!

Tell them “Art lives on even when the humans don't!”

Also, can you tell them we’re not the center of the universe anymore..

let alone our galaxy..

I mean I think there's a reason

the aliens don't want to be our friends.

 

Allen, you need to see what's goin’ on here.

We go to museums to take pictures of ourselves

looking at art

so the world thinks we have value,

Instead taking pictures of the...

excuse me.. a 2015 flaw..

instead of

looking at the art.

long and hard.

like the chronic lifetime it took for the canvas

to get it's own value.

and then see,

FEEEL,

endure the value!

Goodness these people,

I can't tell if they're down to earth

or just living too close to it.

Deep on the surface.

How silly?

Flesh is just flesh

until it uncovers beauty.

These kids don't know art.

 

Maybe I don't either.

Maybe I'm just a poet

who gets fussy over the world

Maybe Allen, I should tell you

how extraordinary beautiful this world (still) is.

Yes, it's being destroyed.

Yes the humans are still doing our

Awful human things to the animals,

to the land...

to the people of the land

... the people

and land

of other land..

But-

The sun still rises and falls

just to rise and fall all over again.

There’s still laughter

and inspiration.

And those who are drawing about it

those who are writing about it

feeling about it!!

Life I mean..

there's still enough for us

to work with.

 

Allen Ginsberg,

I write this to you

from my own inky passion

that refuses to refrain from staining

lined paper

until all the green on this earth is gone

so there will be no more paper

no more life-

But, even then

there will still be underground caves

to carve that all-mighty dying poet’s promise

and it will proclaim:

 “Art is not dead.”

 

Because it isn’t.

..the people are- sometimes.

I think we all exist in the relativity

of life's "sometimes".

But, I reporting to you

from 2015

the artists are alive.

Maybe we're not well...

(that'd make shitty poetry anyways if you ask me.)

We are here.

For every "dying field"

We have sacred gardens,

where your sunflower forms are kept,

and Picasso and Van Gogh's roots remain.

And we are planting ourselves

and our art in this god damned soil.

 

Maybe we’ll meet grow to know

one other someday. `

 

Sincerely,

Amanda