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Oh I, today, sad as Qu Yuan
Stumbled to the store in broiling Florida October morning heat
Cursing for my wine
Sweating like rain
And came to my chair weak and trembling
Wondering if I'm crazy at last
Oh Qu 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 and life too
My heart belongs to Chinese poets and their scrolls
We can't just die
Men need wine and poetry at least
Oh Mao, poet Mao, not boss Mao
Here in America wine is laughed at and poetry a joke
Death's a grim reminder to everybody already dead
Crashing in cars all around here
Here men and women dryly scowl at poets' sad attempts
To make our lot a whole lot lesser
I, a poet, suffer even for bugs I find upside down 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 and right
The east and 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'm hopelessly inadequate in this poem
Nobody has respect for the self-centered irresponsible wine-invalid
Everybody wants to be strapped in a
Hopeless spacesuit where they can't move
I urge you China: go back to Li Po and Dao 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 and
The poets of China that won't come out
It's all about how America ignores poetry and wine
And so does China
And I'm a fool without a river
And a boat
And a flower suit
Without a wine shop 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
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