once upon a hangover

[revolutionR]

once I was the mother of all hangovers
was living in the Sam Wong hotel in North Beach
the bed, what was the springs that had sprung
when Li Po was still nursing his silly...hung low
the odor from the ancient mattress, how many
China men had died on, let alone Frisco poets
the smells of ginger filling the air and maybe
opium too, In those days you could live there cheap
a poet could walk those tortured halls like a spirit
in the night, a minute walk from City Lights books
I painted the town red wine one after reading party
and stumbled up to my room on the third floor
the evening's poems rattling around in my drunk head
I had tried to drink each poem like some cursed thirst
and I could hear the words reciting in my dragon dream
I think I had heard Bobby Kaufman at the reading, his
tiger like spirit with the silence shrouding him, in
darkness, moving slow through the shaman like shadows
my mother of all hangovers taking me down the slow boat

[WIREMAN]

reminds of my washington sq. reveries at the old village plaza hotel, high on roach spray sleeping in a coat under a sheet in a 66 dollar a month room with a million dollar view....