We re-read old poetry
In lilac attempts to
decipher the present
Carving retaliation prose
in Brighton rock
Only to bury our words in
unmarked graves
To one day be found
By hipster archeologists
As they blow dust off the
tombstones
of Kerouac, Bukowski, Steinbeck, Miller, Moriaty
Fictional idols of
itinerant America
And Us, who were colossal
in our pretentions
Us, who declared genius
dead
As we stacked pennies
Under mattresses stained
with what could've beens
Us, who recited
apocalypse prose
Suckling from the breast
of squalor
Till our souls were fat
With the milk of
suffering.
Times are desperate now
Throw down cancerous
newspapers
No government ever told
the truth,
Instead turn an ear
toward volcanic verse
Let molten masculine
words
From bordello and barroom
prophets
Erupt a truth into your
cold lava eyes
Poets who sate thirst
With neat whiskey
tumblers
Whoring out emancipated
words to illiterate Johns
In electric jive cafes
Jack tell me about
getting high,
Hank lets go for a beer
Miller molest my wife
with your barbed tongue
Then, perhaps, that great
golden-brown angel
Will spare us of this
monochrome sanity
And reveal the real truth
That there is no
ready-made furnace
In which to cremate our
tormentors.
