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Ginsberg’s Refrigerator

Alessandra Bava

Photo <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/memestate/5068837/">Rich Anderson</a> / <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/">CC BY-SA</a> / edited by Empty Mirror
Photo Rich Anderson / CC BY-SA / edited by Empty Mirror
In Allen’s tenement flat at 170 East 2nd Street,
even the refrigerator is an outlet of poetry.
The picture in black and white shows a handle

pointing north. On the off-white surface
a picture of Edgar Allan Poe is glued on the left,
one of Baudelaire, le maudit, hangs on the right.

In the backroom a wolf types away poetry
in shape of scars and bright stars. From the
open window Moloch wails to the moon.

Onto the street downstairs noisy trucks
pass by. The bakery clock strikes
midnight. As nobody notices, the fridge

cries a muddled black prayer and spouts
gloomy French lines: “je suis la plaie et
le couteau!”*

*“I am the wound and I the knife” from Charles Baudelaire’s “L’Héautontimorouménos”
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Alessandra Bava

When she is not translating, Alessandra Bava is writing the biography of a contemporary American poet. Her poems and translations have appeared in journals such as Gargoyle, Plath Profiles, THRUSH Poetry Journal, Tinderbox, and Waxwing. Three of her chapbooks have been published in the States. Her most recent translation works are Anthology of Contemporary American Women Poets and Anthology of Contemporary British Women Poets. Her collage works keep her sane at this time when she is experiencing life in quarantine.

Author: Alessandra Bava Tags: Allen Ginsberg, Beat Generation, iu, poetry Category: Poetry July 12, 2013

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Empty Mirror

Established in 2000 and edited by Denise Enck, Empty Mirror is an online literary magazine that publishes new work each Friday.

Each week EM features several poems each by one or two poets; reviews; critical essays; visual art; and personal essays.

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