C'mon Pigs of Western Civilization Eat More Grease (Allen Ginsberg)

From Death & Fame (Poems 1993-1997), published in 1999, Harper Collins press. 

C'mon Pigs of Western Civilization Eat More Grease

Eat Eat more marbled Sirloin more Pork’n
gravy!
Lard up the dressing, fry chicken in
boiling oil
Carry it dribbling to gray climes, snowed with
salt,
Little lambs covered with mint roast in racks
surrounded by roast potatoes wet with
buttersauce,
Buttered veal medallions in creamy saliva,
buttered beef, by glistening mountains
of french fries
Stroganoffs in white hot sour cream, chops
soaked in olive oil
surrounded by olives, salty feta cheese, followed
by Roquefort & Bleu & Stilton
thirsty
for wine, beer Cocacola Fanta Champagne
Pepsi retsina arak whiskey vodka
Agh! Watch out heart attack, pop more
angina pills
order a plate of Bratwurst, fried frankfurters,
couple billion Wimpys’ McDonald’s burgers
to the moon & burp!
Salt on those fries! Hot dogs! Milkshakes!
Forget greenbeans, everyday a few carrots,
a mini big spoonful of salty rice’ll
do, make the plate pretty;
throw in some vinegar pickles, briny sauerkraut
check yr. cholesterol, swallow a pill
and order a sugar Cream donut, pack 2 under
the size 44 belt
Pass out in the vomitorium come back cough
up strands of sandwich sill chewing
pastrami at Katz’s delicatessen
Back to central Europe & gobble Kielbasa
in Lódz
swallow salami in Munich with beer, Liverwurst
on pumpernickel in Berlin, greasy cheese in
a 3 star Hotel near Syntagma, on white
bread thick-buttered
Set an example for developing nations, salt,
sugar, animal fat, coffee tobacco Schnapps
Drop dead faster! Make room for
Chinese guestworkers with alien soybean
curds green cabbage & rice!
Africans Latins with rice beans & calabash can
stay thin & crowd in apartments for working
class foodfreaks —

Not like Western cuisine rich in protein
cancer heart attack hypertension sweat
bloated liver & spleen megaly
Diabetes & stroke-monuments to carnivorous
civilizations
presently murdering Belfast
Bosnia Cypress Ngorno Karabach Georgia
mailing love letter bombs in
Vienna or setting houses afire
in East Germany — have another coffee,
here’s a cigar.
And this is a plate of black forest chocolate cake,
you deserve it.

Mad people

"The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn, like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars and in the middle you see the blue centerlight pop and everybody goes "Awww!""

"As únicas pessoas autênticas, para mim, são as loucas, as que estão loucas por viver, loucas para falar, loucas para serem salvas, desejosas de tudo ao mesmo tempo, as que não bocejam nem dizem nenhum lugar-comum, mas ardem, ardem, ardem, como fabulosas grinaldas amarelas a explodir, semelhantes a aranhas, através das estrelas, e no meio vê-se o clarão azul a estourar e toda a gente exclama "Aaaah!""

(Jack Kerouac - On the Road)

About the picture: "He’s making a Dostoevsky mad-face or Russian basso be-bop Om, then involved with The Subterraneans, just walking around the neighborhood, pencils and notebook in the wool shirt-pocket, Manhattan Fall 1953." (Ginsberg Caption)

Controle

"My fault, my failure, is not in the passions i have, but in my lack of control in them."

"A minha falha e o meu fracasso não são as minhas paixões, mas a falta de controle sobre elas."

(Jack Kerouac)

Desiludidos, frustrados, desacreditados... com a profissão.

Você já passou por isso?

• Seus conselhos profissionais são vistos com pouca ou nenhuma credibilidade por clientes, amigos e/ou familiares, ainda que você tenha conhecimento amplo no assunto;
• Seus colegas de trabalho e inclusive seus superiores hierárquicos apresentam resistência para seguir suas decisões quando realmente deveriam;
• Você já pensou ou ainda pensa em mudar drasticamente de profissão;
• Seus superiores hierárquicos não te fornecem subsídios e nem te incentivam a cursar pós-graduações ou a participar de congressos, por considerarem supérfluo;
• Você recebe salário-fome e você e/ou colegas de profissão já se submeteram a receber salários abaixo do piso salarial;
• Quando o salário passa por um incremento, sente-se ameaçado de perder o emprego para outro colega que aceitaria ganhar abaixo do piso da categoria;
• Durante a faculdade, sua esperança e imaturidade profissional lhe fazia considerar os professores realistas como reacionários e os professores utópicos e restritamente teóricos como motivadores;
• A cada semestre, crescem os milhares de novos formandos na área, provenientes de faculdades cada vez piores no ensino, o que contribui para a manutenção desse quadro desolador;
• Os sindicatos profissionais só mostram presença em épocas de eleições e de envio do boleto para pagamento da taxa anual;
• As pessoas possuem opiniões deturpadas sobre a sua utilidade na sua área de trabalho;
• A mídia só expõe sua categoria em escândalos decorrentes de falha grave na ética profissional. 
  

Esta postagem foi idealizada após mais um dia de trabalho, regado a altas doses de desacreditação profissional, poucos dias após a data que homenageia a minha profissão.

Lady Lazarus (Sylvia Plath)

I have done it again.
One year in every ten
I manage it–

A sort of walking miracle, my skin
Bright as a Nazi lampshade,
My right foot

A paperweight,
My face a featureless, fine
Jew linen.

Peel off the napkin
O my enemy.
Do I terrify?–

The nose, the eye pits, the full set of teeth?
The sour breath
Will vanish in a day.

Soon, soon the flesh
The grave cave ate will be
At home on me

And I a smiling woman.
I am only thirty.
And like the cat I have nine times to die.

This is Number Three.
What a trash
To annihilate each decade.

What a million filaments.
The peanut-crunching crowd
Shoves in to see

Them unwrap me hand and foot–
The big strip tease.
Gentlemen, ladies

These are my hands
My knees.
I may be skin and bone,

Nevertheless, I am the same, identical woman.
The first time it happened I was ten.
It was an accident.

The second time I meant
To last it out and not come back at all.
I rocked shut

As a seashell.
They had to call and call
And pick the worms off me like sticky pearls.

Dying
Is an art, like everything else.
I do it exceptionally well.

I do it so it feels like hell.
I do it so it feels real.
I guess you could say I’ve a call.

It’s easy enough to do it in a cell.
It’s easy enough to do it and stay put.
It’s the theatrical

Comeback in broad day
To the same place, the same face, the same brute
Amused shout:

‘A miracle!’
That knocks me out.
There is a charge

For the eyeing of my scars, there is a charge
For the hearing of my heart–
It really goes.

And there is a charge, a very large charge
For a word or a touch
Or a bit of blood

Or a piece of my hair or my clothes.
So, so, Herr Doktor.
So, Herr Enemy.

I am your opus,
I am your valuable,
The pure gold baby

That melts to a shriek.
I turn and burn.
Do not think I underestimate your great concern.

Ash, ash–
You poke and stir.
Flesh, bone, there is nothing there–

A cake of soap,
A wedding ring,
A gold filling.

Herr God, Herr Lucifer
Beware
Beware.

Out of the ash
I rise with my red hair
And I eat men like air.

-------------------------------------------------

Eu o fiz de novo
Um ano em cada dez
Eu agüento

Um tipo de milagre ambulante, minha pele
Brilhante tal qual um abajur nazista
Meu pé direito

Um peso de papel,
Minha face, como um pano inexpressivo, delicado
Em linho judeu.

Tire o lenço
Ó, meu inimigo
Eu te assusto?

O nariz, o orifício ocular, a dentição plena?
O hálito azedo
Se esvairá em um dia.

Logo, logo a carne
Que a gruta do túmulo comeu se sentirá
Em casa sobre mim

E eu, uma mulher sorridente.
Eu, com apenas trinta anos.
E como o gato tenho nove vezes para morrer

Esta é o número três.
Que lixo
Aniquilar a cada década.

Que milhões de filamentos.
A multidão vulgar
Se acotovela para ver

Eles me desembrulharem mão e pé.
O grande strip tease.
Senhores, senhoras

Eis as minhas mãos
Eis os meus joelhos.
Posso ser pele e osso

Contudo, sou a mesma, idêntica mulher.
Na primeira vez que aconteceu eu tinha dez anos.
Foi um acidente.

Na segunda vez eu pretendi
Agüentar e nem sequer voltar.
Eu fechei em pedra

Como uma concha do mar.
Eles tiveram que chamar e chamar
E arrancar de mim os vermes, pérolas grudentas.

Morrer
É uma arte como todo o resto.
Eu o faço excepcionalmente bem.

Eu o faço para saber o inferno.
Eu o faço para saber a real.
Eu suponho que se possa dizer que eu tenho um chamado.

É fácil fazê-lo em uma cela.
É fácil fazê-lo e permanecer estático.
É o teátrico

Retorno, em plena luz do dia
Ao mesmo lugar, ao mesmo rosto, aos
mesmos brutos
Entretidos gritando

“um milagre!”
Isso me estarrece.
Há um custo

Para ver as minhas cicatrizes, há um custo
Para sentir o meu coração
Ele realmente pulsa.

E há um custo, um grande custo
Por uma palavra, ou um toque
Ou um pouco de sangue

Ou um pedaço do meu cabelo ou um pedaço da minha roupa.
Então, então, Herr Doktor.
Então, Herr Inimigo.

Eu sou sua composição
Eu sou seu pertence
O bebê de ouro puro

Que derrete a um grito estridente.
Eu me viro e ardo.
Não pense que eu subestimo sua grande preocupação.

Cinzas, cinzas
Você cutuca e revolve.
Carne, osso, não há nada lá.

Um sabonete,
Uma aliança,
Um dente de ouro.

Herr Deus, Herr Lúcifer
Cuidado
Cuidado.

De dentro das cinzas
Eu desponto, meu cabelo em fogo
E devoro homens como ar.

Sylvia

Bohren & der Club of Gore - Still am tresen (The Lost Weekend, 1945)

This film noir excerpt perfectly fits with this horror jazz.

Farrapo Humano / The Lost Weekend (Billy Wilder, 1945)

"Dellirium is a disease of the night."

('Bim' Nolan, the nurse, from the movie The Lost Weekend, directed by Billy Wilder)

Network (1976)

I don't have to tell you things are bad. Everybody knows things are bad. It's a depression. Everybody's out of work or scared of losing their job. The dollar buys a nickel's worth, banks are going bust, shopkeepers keep a gun under the counter. Punks are running wild in the street and there's nobody anywhere who seems to know what to do, and there's no end to it. We know the air is unfit to breathe and our food is unfit to eat, and we sit watching our TV's while some local newscaster tells us that today we had fifteen homicides and sixty-three violent crimes, as if that's the way it's supposed to be. We know things are bad - worse than bad. They're crazy. It's like everything everywhere is going crazy, so we don't go out anymore. We sit in the house, and slowly the world we are living in is getting smaller, and all we say is, 'Please, at least leave us alone in our living rooms. Let me have my toaster and my TV and my steel-belted radials and I won't say anything. Just leave us alone.' Well, I'm not gonna leave you alone. I want you to get mad! I don't want you to protest. I don't want you to riot - I don't want you to write to your congressman because I wouldn't know what to tell you to write. I don't know what to do about the depression and the inflation and the Russians and the crime in the street. All I know is that first you've got to get mad. (shouting) You've got to say, 'I'm a human being, god-dammit! My life has value!' So I want you to get up now. I want all of you to get up out of your chairs. I want you to get up right now and go to the window. Open it, and stick your head out, and yell, 'I'm as mad as hell, and I'm not going to take this anymore!' I want you to get up right now, sit up, go to your windows, open them and stick your head out and yell - 'I'm as mad as hell and I'm not going to take this anymore!' Things have got to change. But first, you've gotta get mad!...You've got to say, 'I'm as mad as hell, and I'm not going to take this anymore!' Then we'll figure out what to do about the depression and the inflation and the oil crisis. But first get up out of your chairs, open the window, stick your head out, and yell, and say it: 'I'm as mad as hell, and I'm not going to take this anymore!'

You have meddled with the primary forces of nature, Mr Beale, and I won't have it! Is that clear?

You think you merely stopped a business deal. That is not the case. The Arabs have taken billions of dollars out of this country, and now they must put it back! It is ebb and flow, tide and gravity. It is ecological balance.

You are an old man who thinks in terms of nations and peoples. There are no nations. There are no peoples. There are no Russians. There are no Arabs. There are no Third Worlds. There is no West. There is only one holistic system of systems. One vast and immane, interwoven, interacting, multi-varied, multi-national dominion of dollars. Petro-dollars, electro-dollars, multi-dollars, reichmarks, rands, rubles, pounds and shekels.

It is the international system of currency which determines the totality of life on this planet. That is the natural order of things today. That is the atomic, and sub-atomic and galactic structure of things today.

And YOU have meddled with the primal forces of nature. And you will atone.

Am I getting through to you, Mr Beale?

You get up on your little twenty-one inch screen and howl about America and democracy. There is no America. There is no democracy. There is only IBM and ITT and AT&T, and DuPont, Dow, Union Carbide and Exxon. Those are the nations of the world today.

What do you think the Russians talk about in their Councils of State? Karl Marx? They get out their linear programming charts, statistical decision theories, mini-max solutions, and compute the price-cost probabilities of their transactions and investments, just like we do.

We no longer live in a world of nations and ideologies, Mr Beale. The world is a college of corporations, inexorably determined by the immutable bye-laws of of business. The world is a business, Mr Beale. It has been since man crawled out of the slime.

And our children will live, Mr Beale, to see that ... perfect ... world in which there is no war nor famine, oppression or brutality. One vast and ecumenical holding company for whom all men will work to serve a common profit. In which all men will hold a share of stock.

All necessities provided. All anxieties tranquilized. All boredom amused.

Some people (Charles Bukowski)

Some people never go crazy.
Me, sometimes I'll lie down behind the couch
for 3 or 4 days.
They'll find me there.
It's Cherub, they'll say, and
they pour wine down my throat
rub my chest
sprinkle me with oils. 
Then, I'll rise with a roar,
rant, rage -
curse them and the universe
as I send them scattering over the
lawn.
I'll feel much better,
sit down to toast and eggs,
hum a little tune, 
suddenly become as lovable as a
pink 
overfed whale. 
Some people never go crazy.
what truly horrible lives
they must lead.