t…" (19-20), they are still spiritual. They "…bared their brains to heaven under the El and saw Mohammedan/ angels staggering on tenement roofs illuminated" (9-10). Drug-use is another thing that was condemned in the 1950's and is actually still condemned today. The poem seems to suggest that, even though these people may have destroyed their bodies, and in some cases their minds, they are made aware of a higher plane of knowledge. These "angelheaded hipsters burning for the ancient heavenly connection to/ the starry dynamo in the machinery of night" (4-5) are in tune with the spiritual. This is a contradiction to popular belief. Most often, one would not associate drug use and spirituality, but it is done here and is convincing. Ginsberg, through images, brings the reader to a state of empathy for the people described in the poem. In Part III of the poem, Ginsberg discusses the plight of Carl Solomon. Concluding from the poem, Solomon had gone insane from all the things described in part one and two. He is in an institution in Rockland. In this section of the poem, Solomon is still described as a spiritual being. It is the institution that is unholy and forcing him to stay insane, not allowing him to reach his spiritual height. The poem reads: I am with you in Rockland Where you bang on the catatonic piano the soul is innocent and immortal it should never die ungodly in and armed madhouse/ I'm with you in Rockland where fifty more shocks will never return you soul to its body again from its pilgrimage from across the void (326-32).Carl Solomon is still holy. It is the institution that is not. The poem is suggesting that the shock therapy and injections of medicine have made his condition worse and most likely unredeemable. Ginsberg describes the establishment in the second part of the poem where he personifies it with the name Moloch. Moloch was a deity that the Canaanites sacrificed small children to, and Ginsberg p...
