Ferlinghetti: Assassination Raga

Ferlinghetti read his "Assassination Raga" for the first time that evening,
June 8, 1968. It had been completed a few hours earlier, as the
poet watched Senator Robert Kennedy's funeral on television.


Tune in to a raga
on the stereo
and turn on Death
without its sound
Outside the plums are growing in a tree
'The force that through the green fuse
drives the flower'
drives Death TV
'A grief ago

[ ... ]

Plums & planes are falling through the air
La illaha el lill Allah
as sitar sings its only answer
sitar sings its only answer
sitar sounds the only sound
that still can still all violence
La illaha el lill Allah
There is no god but life
There is no god but life
La illaha el lill Allah

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