C’mon Pigs of Western Civilization
Eat More Grease.

By Allen Ginsberg

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 rack
    surrounded by roast potatoes wet with
    buttersauce.
Buttered veal medallions in creamy saliva
    buttered beef, 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', MacDonald burger
    to the moon & burp!
Salt on those fries! Boil onions
    & breaded mushrooms even zucchini
    in deep hot Crisco pans
Turkeys die only once,
    look nice, next to tall white glasses
    sugarmilk & icecream vanilla balls
Strawberrry for sweeter color milkshakes
    with hot dogs
Forget greenbeans, everyday a few carrots,
    a mini big spoonful of salty rice'll
    do, make the plate pretty;
throw in some vinegar pickles, briney 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 still chewing
    pastrami at Katz's delicatessen
Back to central Europe & gobble Kielbasa
    in Lodz
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.

         Athens, 19 December 1993 © Allen Ginsberg
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About Allen Ginsberg

Renowned poet, world traveler, spiritual seeker, founding member of a major literary movement, champion of human and civil rights, photographer and songwriter, political gadfly, teacher and co-founder of a poetics school. Allen Ginsberg (1926-1997) defied simple classification.

Poets are commonly known only within their circles of readerships but like Walt Whitman, Ginsberg's name was recognizable to millions who had never read so much as a single word of his poetry. Like Whitman, the foundation of Ginsberg's work was the notion that one's individual thoughts and experiences resonated among the masses. "It occurs to me that I am America," Ginsberg wrote, and while the statement was intended to be humorous, it also illustrated his idea that democracy begins with the raising of a single voice. At the height of his celebrity, Allen Ginsberg was, arguably, as symbolic of America — or at least a large segment of the country — as anyone.

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