The Ginsberg Gift
(A Commercially Complacent Sin)
By Bocephus Jackson, The Hemlock Bard, ©2026 Bocephus Jackson. All Rights Reserved
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Prologue
From echo chambers to arenas,
Speaking truth to an assumed power,
With defined and defended schemas,
As reductive tags tossed from towers,
Resume dialogues of ideas —
That forces all the pundits to cower.
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“The public has an insatiable curiosity to know everything, except what is worth knowing.” — Oscar Wilde
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Vanity, O vanity, I serve you,
Despite all the excuses, it is true,
Within and without one’s own artistry,
With each syllable I say, ‘Look at me,”
Whether it is nobler to question why,
Evolving into Joss Whedon’s ‘Firefly,’
Or Meyer’s unfortunate Mire Wolf shit,
Allen Ginsberg’s gift urges us to commit,
To create and destroy it as duty,
To the communal well of artistry —
Where all our inspiration is derived,
While millennia of craft is denied.
As character development concedes —
Bad writing still serves the community,
As a cautionary tale of intent,
For when our vanity is so hell-bent —
Becoming a copy-paste Danielle Steel,
Tyler Perry, or Tim Burton, that feel —
Their bullshit is worthy of submission,
For a vast audience’s retention,
As each accepts a Faustian bargain,
Committing the artist’s original sin:
If ego conforms to complacency,
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Humanity, I serve your vanity.
Tis better to love and lose your darlings,
Than to become Meyer’s Mire wolf warning…
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Coda
We left behind discussion for debate,
Now we finalize humanity’s fate,
Where we instigate, not investigate,
All the machinations we meditate,
While other alternatives dissipate,
With no opportunities on the plate.
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“The artist’s vanity is the fuel of his genius, until it becomes the engine of his destruction.” — Honoré de Balzac
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Author’s Reflection
“Ambition is the death of destruction; vanity is the end of the spirit.” — Friedrich Nietzsche
Allen Ginsberg told a class of high school students to create anything, whether serious or nonsensical, then tear it up, implying that the act of creating matters more than either the product or the person.
This was one of the last things he offered before his final howl. By creating, we commune with every creator since the breath of life was distilled into humanity. Therefore, Logos is life serving itself so that the universe can understand itself.
We not only drink from the same inspirational well as Shakespeare, Whitman, Sagan, Angelou, Wilde, etc., but we also give back through our perspectives and offerings.
When we either physically destroy art or allow others to destroy it through misinterpretation, what we take from the communal well returns to the Akashic record of universal knowledge that has existed since before time or history.
As artists, our ‘wonderment’ is both a witness and a warning. So the goal in life isn’t to be an Online Ozymandias inscribing names into everything to be remembered. No, what history forgets, the Pantheon of artists that align the cosmos remembers and encourages.
So whether your work is good or bad, know that there is no competition; never was. We create to answer that Socratic question ‘Why?’ Therefore, the cosmic comment section awaits your thoughts. The clock’s ticking…
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Epilogue
Upon this planet, while you fret or strut,
Within the tempests and tribulations,
Finding yourself in an artistic rut,
Considering: ‘Why do I even try?’
Comes a divinely true revelation —
Your artistry isn’t worse than ‘Firefly,’
Or Rand Meyer’s howling recreation,
So it’s best to let Mormon mire wolves lie.
…Giving Joss Rand-Meyer a Ginsberg final ‘Fountainhead Firefly’ howl is poetically fitting, no?!
[Exit the Maury Povich stage, chased by a melancholic Mormon Madea Werewolf shouting, “Do you worship our lord Tyler Steele?!” Meanwhile, Atlas shrugged, “Critics, amirite?!”]
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“I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked.” — Allen Ginsberg
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©2026 Bocephus Jackson. All Rights Reserved
