Collage

(for Allen Ginsberg)

Worship money, deposit your soul
in a savings account (with interest),
social security cu/t, stock market down
dollar bills rise with righteousness,
mortgages on the house, down payments on the car,
gas bills, electric bills, phone bills, rent,
food, clothes, parties,
bills, bills, more bills, tax forms, bureaucracy,
coupons, savings, tax deductions, insurance,
banks, more banks, credit cards, Visa, MasterCard,
psychologists, psychiatrists, morticians, priests,
investments, stocks, bonds, dividends,
The Wall Street Journal next to The Holy Bible—
ARE WE SAFE?
nuclear weapons, more nuclear weapons,
technology, technocracy, automatocracy,
capitalism, exploitation, commercialism,
sell yourself, promote yourself,
make friends and influence people,
ARE YOU GOOD-LOOKING??
Ford, General Motors, General Electric,
IBM, AT&T, Coca-Cola, CIA, FBI,
corporations, business,
television, magazines, newspapers, radio,
doctors, lawyers, undertakers, criminals,
bank robberies, obesity, tits ‘n’ ass, big dicks,
hair sprays, shampoos, deodorants, douches,
chemicals, poisons, food, AIDS, herpes, toilet paper,
McDonald’s, Burger King, cancer, research,
progress, disasters, more disease, high blood pressure,
heart attack, stroke, indigestion, constipation,
diarrhea, consciousness, prejudice, hatred,
insecurity, divorce, copulation, perversion,
sex, violence, money, money, money...
communism, cynicism, idiotism, SCHIZOPHRENIA.
beer, booze, drugs, more drugs, hysteria,
rock ‘n’ roll, punk, junk, funk, drunk,
hunk, chunk, FAMILY PROBLEMS!!!
pollution, prostitution, revolution,
absolution, constitution,
SALVATION


    May 21, 1986
--Alexander Shaumyan