filled with fluffy clouds stretched from Central City to Rocky
Flats, Plutonium sizzled in its secret bed,
hot dogs sizzled in the Lion's Club lunchwagon microwave
mouth, orangeade bubbled over in waxen cups
Traffic moved along Colefax, meditators silent in the Diamond
Castle shrine-room at Boulder followed the breath going
out of their nostrils,
Nobody could remember anything, spirits flew out of mouths
& noses, out of the sky, across Colorado plains & the
tent flapped happily open spacious & didn't fall down.
June 18, 1978
II -- Peace Protest
Cumulus clouds float across blue sky
over the white-walled Rockwell Corporation factory
-- am I going to stop that?
*
Rocky Mountains rising behind us
Denver shining in morning light
Rockwell Corporation was an aerospace and U.S. military aircraft manufacturer. Again Ginsberg combines images of the pleasant blue sky and ideas about war and government. When he asks “–am I going to stop that?”, in relation to the title of Part II of the poem, “Peace Protest”, it suggests that these converging images cannot be separated, they are inextricably woven together into an idea of American-ness. Peace is a convoluted idea in American society, for even on the pleasant sunny afternoons there is evidence of this brooding sense of combat and violence.
Nagasaki Days