ON BURROUGHS’ WORK
The method must be purest meat
           and no symbolic dressing,
actual visions & actual prisons
           as seen then and now.

Prisons and visions presented
           with rare descriptions
corresponding exactly to those
           of Alcatraz and Rose.

A naked lunch is natural to us,
           we eat reality sandwiches.
But allegories are so much lettuce.
           Don’t hide the madness.

—Allen Ginsberg