We don’t need
another beat revival
How many notes
can a dead man sing?
lying still
for so many years
for so many heartbreaks
How can you feel the hunger?
di Prima won’t return
my phone calls
Ginsberg rocked me
to sleep last night
McClure can’t make the trek
across the Golden Gate
Remember Gary Snyder?
Ferlinghetti doesn’t
The Kerouac archives
are locked
key in a fistful of dollars
but the only bill I carry
was spent on the next
low-down dirty rag
I use to wipe sorrow
off the face
of tomorrow’s poets
making headlines
in the best minds
of my generation
Not just a
fly by night operation
face pressed to the window
inside a 747
flying over middle-class
suburban guilty pleasures
during the light of day
but the pressure from cold steel
off a hot 38 special
on the back of your neck
under a blackened moon
in the darkest alley
of your thoughts
just when the man
is about to pull the trigger
when only words
can save you now
forget about getting Beat