Editing Howl (poem) (section)

===Part II===
Ginsberg says that Part II, in relation to Part I, "names the monster of mental consciousness that preys on the Lamb". Part II is about the state of industrial civilization, characterized in the poem as "[[Moloch]]". Ginsberg was inspired to write Part II during a period of [[peyote]]-induced visionary consciousness in which he saw a hotel façade as a monstrous and horrible visage which he identified with that of Moloch, the [[Bible|Biblical]] [[cult image|idol]] in [[Leviticus]] to whom the [[Canaanites]] [[human sacrifice|sacrificed]] children.<ref name="notes">Ginsberg, Allen. "Notes Written on Finally Recording 'Howl'". ''Deliberate Prose: Selected Essays 1952–1995''. Ed. Bill Morgan. New York: Harper Collins, 2000.</ref>

Ginsberg intends that the characters he portrays in Part I be understood to have been sacrificed to this idol. Moloch is also the name of an industrial, [[demon]]ic figure in [[Fritz Lang]]'s ''[[Metropolis (1927 film)|Metropolis]]'', a film that Ginsberg credits with influencing "Howl, Part II" in his annotations for the poem (see especially ''Howl: Original Draft Facsimile, Transcript & Variant Versions''). Most lines in this section contain the fixed base "Moloch". Ginsberg says of Part II, "Here the long line is used as a [[stanza]] form broken within into exclamatory units punctuated by a base repetition, Moloch."<ref name="Notes_for_Howl"/>