Cosmopolitan Greetings, 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 e 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 require an

observer to be-

come scientific data.

The measuring instrument determines the appearance of

the phenome-

nal world after Einstein.

The universe is subjective.

Walt Whitman celebrated Person.

We are 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.

Others can measure their vision by what we see.

Candor ends paranoia.

Kral Majales

June 25, 1986

Boulder, Colorado

From “Cosmopolitan Greetings: Poems 1986-1992” by Allen Ginsberg. (HarperCollins: $20.) 1994 Reprinted by permission.