It's Allen Ginsberg's birthday. He'd be celebrating in style, but he can't because he's dead. Instead, you should celebrate by reading some rowdy poetry. In case you don't know, Allen Ginsberg saw "the best minds of [his] generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked," or so he says in his famous poem, Howl. The 'best minds' to which he refers are presumably his cohorts of the Beat Movement. If you've forgotten who the Beats were and what they were all about, check out my blog post from back in the day (read: September) by clicking here.

Otherwise, enjoy one of my favorite Ginsberg poems, A Supermarket in California. In this surreal commentary on society and the literary world, Ginsberg finds two of his literary influences in the supermarket.

A Supermarket in California

What thoughts I have of you tonight, Walt Whitman, for I walked down the
streets under the trees with a headache self-conscious looking at the full moon.
In my hungry fatigue, and shopping for images, I went into the neon fruit
supermarket, dreaming of your enumerations!
What peaches and what penumbras! Whole families shopping at night! Aisles
full of husbands! Wives in the avocados, babies in the tomatoes! --- and you,
Garcia Lorca, what were you doing down by the watermelons?
I saw you, Walt Whitman, childless, lonely old grubber, poking among the
meats in the refrigerator and eyeing the grocery boys.
I heard you asking questions of each: Who killed the pork chops? What price
bananas? Are you my Angel?
I wandered in and out of the brilliant stacks of cans following you, and
followed in my imagination by the store detective.
We strode down the open corridors together in our solitary fancy tasting
artichokes, possessing every frozen delicacy, and never passing the cashier.
Where are we going, Walt Whitman? The doors close in an hour. Which way does
your beard point tonight?
(I touch your book and dream of our odyssey in the supermarket and feel
absurd.)
Will we walk all night through solitary streets? The trees add shade to
shade, lights out in the houses, we'll both be lonely.
Will we stroll dreaming of the lost America of love past blue automobiles in
driveways, home to our silent cottage?
Ah, dear father, graybeard, lonely old courage-teacher, what America did you
have when Charon quit poling his ferry and you got out on a smoking bank and
stood watching the boat disappear on the black waters of Lethe?