I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness

Allen Ginsberg. One of the founding fathers of beat poetry of the 50's. Wrote it the way he saw it. Openly homosexual at a time when people were lynched for their most personal preferences. Saw mental illness up close and personal. Wanted more for and from our country. Spoke his mind and inspired many to live in their skin. "Howl" is the poem that we get the title line from. But today I want to share my favorite Ginsberg.

And I would LOVE to know what you think! Comment.

A Supermarket in California

What thoughts I have of you tonight, Walt Whitman, for I walked down the
streets under the trees with a headache self-conscious looking at the full moon.

In my hungry fatigue, and shopping for images, I went into the neon fruit
supermarket, dreaming of your enumerations!
What peaches and what penumbras! Whole families shopping at night! Aisles
full of husbands! Wives in the avocados, babies in the tomatoes! --- and you,
Garcia Lorca, what were you doing down by the watermelons?
I saw you, Walt Whitman, childless, lonely old grubber, poking among the
meats in the refrigerator and eyeing the grocery boys.
I heard you asking questions of each: Who killed the pork chops? What price
bananas? Are you my Angel?
I wandered in and out of the brilliant stacks of cans following you, and
followed in my imagination by the store detective.
We strode down the open corridors together in our solitary fancy tasting
artichokes, possessing every frozen delicacy, and never passing the cashier.
Where are we going, Walt Whitman? The doors close in an hour. Which way does
your beard point tonight?
(I touch your book and dream of our odyssey in the supermarket and feel
absurd.)
Will we walk all night through solitary streets? The trees add shade to
shade, lights out in the houses, we'll both be lonely.
Will we stroll dreaming of the lost America of love past blue automobiles in
driveways, home to our silent cottage?
Ah, dear father, graybeard, lonely old courage-teacher, what America did you
have when Charon quit poling his ferry and you got out on a smoking bank and
stood watching the boat disappear on the black waters of Lethe?

Woooooooorrrrrrdsworth!

I did say once that right after Jesus I really want to meet Wordsworth someday.
(I'm pretty sure I still mean that.)

William Wordsworth, like Coleridge, Blake, Keats and others is one of the Romantics. And not just one of them, but was key in bringing about and defining the movement. Have I mentioned I've got a thing for these guys? They set out to dissemble the previous notions of structure and specifically questioned religion and what part it plays in a world that, as Darwin was just discovering, was subject to natural laws. They had this idea that all you needed to teach a child was this natural world around you. And they put thought, feeling and intuition ahead of the "rules" of society.

Yes, Wordsworth was a rock-star.

Most of Wordsworth's pieces are quite lengthy. I went for two of his shorter pieces today. They both remind me to keep my priorities in check and to stop and smell the roses every now and then.

The world is too much with us

The world is too much with us; late and soon,
Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers;
Little we see in Nature that is ours;
We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!
This Sea that bares her bosom to the moon;
The winds that will be howling at all hours,
And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers,
For this, for everything, we are out of tune;
It moves us not.--Great God!  I'd rather be
A pagan suckled in a creed outworn;
So might I, standing on this pleasant lea,
Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn;
Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea;
Or hear old Triton blow his wreathèd horn.

Composed Upon Westminster Bridge, September 3, 1802

Earth has not anything to show more fair:
Dull would he be of soul who could pass by
A sight so touching in its majesty:
This City now doth, like a garment, wear
The beauty of the morning; silent, bare,
Ships, towers, domes, theatres, and temples lie
Open unto the fields, and to the sky;
All bright and glittering in the smokeless air.
Never did sun more beautifully steep
In his first splendour, valley, rock, or hill;
Ne'er saw I, never felt, a calm so deep!
The river glideth at his own sweet will:
Dear God! the very houses seem asleep;
And all that mighty heart is lying still!