Sign Inventory 1 AND Improv/Imitation 1, Week 1

Given its length, I will only focus on the first page of Allen Ginsburg's "Howl."  The following is the excerpt with which I shall imitate and annotate:

I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by
      madness, starving hysterical naked,
dragging themselves through the negro streets at dawn
     looking for an angry fix,
angelheaded hipsters burning for the ancient heavenly
     connection to the starry dynamo in the machin-
     ery of night,
who poverty and tatters and hollow-eyed and high sat
     up smoking in the supernatural darkness of
     cold-water flats floating across the tops of cities
     contemplating jazz,
who bared their brains to Heaven under the El and
     saw Mohammedan angels staggering on tene-
     ment roofs illuminated,
who passed through universities with radiant cool eyes
     hallucinating Arkansas and Blake-light tragedy
     among the scholars of war,
who were expelled from the academies for crazy &
     publishing obscene odes on the windows of the
     skull,

SIGN INVENTORY

Line 1:  the descriptive, ironical phrase "the best minds" suggests an inversion of values, whereas the avant-garde artists are placed in a superior position in relation to their Modernist critics.

Line 2:  the words "madness," "starving," and "hysterical" places the blame for their degeneration on something (though we don't know what exactly) outside of themselves; they have been driven to this state

Line 3:  the word "dragging" has a Sisyphus-like quality to it; a drug addict who becomes addicted and wants to get clean has to figuratively "drag" themselves against their own consciousness to the next hit.

Lines 5-6:  the words "angelheaded" and "heavenly" carry pleasant, almost tranquil-like connotations, which the reader then relates back to "the best minds"; this garners sympathy for those individuals who are angelic-like but tortured by a force outside themselves

Line 8:  the first instance of the word "who" at the beginning of a line suggests a turn in the poem's lyricalism; for the rest of the poem, the word "who" comes to serve as a place marker for the reader to take a breath; each line after should be read in one elongated breath

Lines 12-14:  the Islamic references contradict the common Western conception of religion, which is almost always related to Christianity; the word "angels" triggers the image most Westerners have only to turn them on their heads with "Mohammadean"

Lines 15-17:  the phrases "radiant cool eyes" and "scholars of war" clash with one another, presenting a relationship that is almost contradictory to expectations; the "radiant cool eyes" seemingly has no worries, while the "scholars of war" spend their entire careers knee-deep in war history

Line 18:  "for crazy" is nonsensical; it is an adjective, yet here it is used as a noun

Line 19-20:  alliteration is employed when we read "obscene odes on," which gels well with the word "skull"; both "obscene" and "skull" are striking words that each compliments the other

IMPROV/IMITATION

I saw the only admirable figures of my time
     rupture themselves with thick tongues of lead
the rebellious saints that mold their parts askew
     from last night's leftovers and paradoxes
the cloned turnips murdering and raping their hopes
     and desires--whatever that means means
who operate fleshy laboratories and sqwat, thrust,
     shit, cake, shit, into another pile of shit
who lasers and barbs that shit in an anxious bundle of
     time & by and by & dancing flames
who pixelated a parasitic masterpiece of human anatomy
     that eats Lincolns, Washingtons, and Jeffersons
     and shits in a hot-pink coin purse without
     consideration--whatever that means means
who danced and flamed and dogged and filmed
     and extinguished self and own respectively
     for a winter of failured cigarette ash
who prop their worth up like mannequins on stilts
     like Bruce, Kenny, Cherilyn, and Miss Shores
who spread butter, green ink, & red white blue,
     pride--whatever that means means
who lamia's lamia bakes bread to rise rise risen
     and gorge for you and gorge on you and
     gorge on pleasure with no teeth or water
who had a mouth like sandpaper that rashed dicks
     though consuming the infinite future of humankind--
     whatever that means,