In June 1965, Allen Ginsberg was interviewed at length by fellow poet Tom Clark. They touched on such topics as poetic meter, William S. Burroughs, and Blake’s “The Sick Rose.” When the conversation turned to hallucinogens, Ginsberg, a famously early adopter of LSD, describes a vision so ominous it could’ve turned an entire generation off drugs:
If I close my eyes on hallucinogens, I get a vision of great scaly dragons in outer space, they’re winding slowly and eating their own tails. Sometimes my skin and all the room seem sparkling with scales, and it’s all made out of serpent stuff. And as if the whole illusion of life were made of reptile dream.
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