From The Book of Martyrdom and Artifice: First Journals and Poems, 1937-192

by Allen Ginsberg

What a terrible future

I am 23, the year of the iron birthday, the gate of darkness.

I am ill.

I have become spiritually or practically impotent 

in my maddess of this last month.

I suddenly realized that my head is

severed from my body;

I realized it a few nights ago, by myself,

lying sleepless on the couch.