Written by
Allen Ginsberg |
To Struga Festival Golden Wreath Laureates
& International Bards 1986
Stand up against governments, against God.
Stay irresponsible.
Say only what we know & imagine.
Absolutes are coercion.
Change is absolute.
Ordinary mind includes eternal perceptions.
Observe what's vivid.
Notice what you notice.
Catch yourself thinking.
Vividness is self-selecting.
If we don't show anyone, we're free to write anything.
Remember the future.
Advise only yourself.
Don't drink yourself to death.
Two molecules clanking against each other requires an observer to become
scientific data.
The measuring instrument determines the appearance of the phenomenal
world after Einstein.
The universe is subjective.
Walt Whitman celebrated Person.
We Are an observer, measuring instrument, eye, subject, Person.
Universe is person.
Inside skull vast as outside skull.
Mind is outer space.
"Each on his bed spoke to himself alone, making no sound.
"
First thought, best thought.
Mind is shapely, Art is shapely.
Maximum information, minimum number of syllables.
Syntax condensed, sound is solid.
Intense fragments of spoken idiom, best.
Consonants around vowels make sense.
Savor vowels, appreciate consonants.
Subject is known by what she sees.
Others can measure their vision by what we see.
Candor ends paranoia.
Kral Majales
June 25, 1986
Boulder, Colorado
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Written by
Robert William Service |
Let laureates sing with rapturous swing
Of the wonder and glory of work;
Let pulpiteers preach and with passion impeach
The indolent wretches who shirk.
No doubt they are right: in the stress of the fight
It's the slackers who go to the wall;
So though it's my shame I perversely proclaim
It's fine to do nothing at all.
It's fine to recline on the flat of one's spine,
With never a thought in one's head:
It's lovely to le staring up at the sky
When others are earning their bread.
It's great to feel one with the soil and the sun,
Drowned deep in the grasses so tall;
Oh it's noble to sweat, pounds and dollars to get,
But - it's grand to do nothing at all.
So sing to the praise of the fellows who laze
Instead of lambasting the soil;
The vagabonds gay who lounge by the way,
Conscientious objectors to toil.
But lest you should think, by this spatter of ink,
The Muses still hold me in thrall,
I'll round out my rhyme, and (until the next time)
Work like hell - doing nothing at all.
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Written by
Emily Dickinson |
To learn the Transport by the Pain
As Blind Men learn the sun!
To die of thirst -- suspecting
That Brooks in Meadows run!
To stay the homesick -- homesick feet
Upon a foreign shore --
Haunted by native lands, the while --
And blue -- beloved air!
This is the Sovereign Anguish!
This -- the signal woe!
These are the patient "Laureates"
Whose voices -- trained -- below --
Ascend in ceaseless Carol --
Inaudible, indeed,
To us -- the duller scholars
Of the Mysterious Bard!
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Written by
Robert Herrick |
Not on the lute, nor harp of many strings
Shall all men praise the Master of all song.
Our life is brief, one saith, and art is long;
And skilled must be the laureates of kings.
Silent, O lips that utter foolish things!
Rest, awkward fingers striking all notes wrong!
How from your toil shall issue, white and strong,
Music like that God's chosen poet sings?
There is one harp that any hand can play,
And from its strings what harmonies arise!
There is one song that any mouth can say, --
A song that lingers when all singing dies.
When on their beads our Mother's children pray
Immortal music charms the grateful skies.
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