Something short and something sweet.

Look at the sunflower, he said, there was a dead gray 

shadow against the sky, big as a man, sitting

dry on top of a pile of ancient sawdust-

-I rushed up enchanted- it was my first sunflower,

memories of Blake-my visions-Harlem

and Hells of the Eastern rivers, bridges clanking Joes

Greasy Sandwiches, dead baby carriages, black

treadless tires forgotten and unretreaded, the 

poem of the riverbank, pots, steel 

knives, nothing stainless, only the dank muck

and the razor-sharp artifacts passing into the

past-

and the gray Sunflower poised against the sunset,

crackly bleak and dusty with the smut and smog

and smoke of olden locomotives in its eye-

corolla of bleary spikes pushed down and broken like 

a battered crown, seeds fallen out of its face,

soon-to-be-toothless mouth of sunny air, sun-

rays obliterated on its hairy head like a dried

wire spiderweb,

leaves stuck out like arms out of the stem, gestures

from the sawdust root, broke pieces of plaster

fallen out of the black twigs, a dead fly in its ear,

Unholy battered old thing you were, my sunflower O

my soul, I loved you then!

Excerpt from "Sunflower Sutra" by Allen Ginsberg

photos by Denise Grünstein

Sorry I've been away for a few days, dears.

I've been busy with a photo shoot, editing, and life in general!

Will show you new photos soon soon soon!