o i today sad as chu yuan stumbled to the store in broiling florida october morning heat cursing for my wine sweating like rain came to my chair weak trembling wondering if i m crazy at last o chu yuan no no suicide wine please wine what shall we all do all knowing we re dying without wine to guide us to winking at death life too my heart belongs to chinese poets their scrolls we can t just die men need wine poetry at least o mao poet mao not boss mao here in america wine is laughed at poetry a joke death s a grim reminder to everybody already dead crashing in cars all around here here men women dryly scowl at poets sad attempts to make our lot lesser i a poet suffer even for bugs i find upsidedown dying in the grass so i drink wine alone i shudder to think how dead the astronauts are going to a dead moon of no wine all our best men are laughed at in this nightmare land but the newspapers preen in virtue throughout the world the left right the east west are both vicious the happy old winebibber is gone i want him to reappear for modern china preens in virtue too for no better reason than america nobody has respect for the cat asleep and i am hopelessly inadequate in this poem nobody has respect for the self centered irresponsible wine invalid everybody wants to be strapped in a hopeless space suit where they can t move i urge you china go back to li po tao yuan ming what am i talking about i don t know i m sick today i didn t sleep all night walked stumbling in the field to get wine now i m drinking it i feel better and worse i have something to say to mao the poets of china that won t come out it s all about how america ignored poetry wine so does china i m a fool without a river a boat a flower suit without a wineshop at dawn without self respect without the truth but i m a better man than all of you that s what i wanted to say