Allen Ginsberg

“Howl” (extract)

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,
Angel-headed hipsters burning for the
ancient heavenly connection to the starry dynamo
in the machinery of night,
Who poverty and tatters and hollow-eyed and high
sat up smoking in the supernatural Darkness of
coldwater flats floating across the tops of cities
contemplating jazz…..