Poem for My Brother (and in response to Allen Ginsberg)

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I wrote this poem after visiting my brother in Denver this weekend.  He happens to live around the corner from the Colburn Hotel, where we went for drinks one night (in the very same bar where Allen Ginsberg wrote his great poem Denver Doldrums), and I thought about Jack and Allen and I took this picture in the lobby as well:

 

Art is no illusion

For a poet who commits

To the present tense

In more ways than

Just one forever

Sparing no expense

Reason or rhyme

In other words

Not holding

Back in the least

In the love of my brother

No less than you of Jack

I suppose

An edifice (or two)

Worthy of Oedipus

If you know what I mean

Mythically strong in that

These twin towers

Have been built to last

Thus your poem speaks

To mine even though

Sal Paradise and I now

Must go our separate ways

Each prone to our own misreading

Part willful

Part not

And completely unknowing of

Whatever unworldly future states

I too may happen to move in

Such is my keen sense

Of the brick façade

And the interior space

Of the Colburn Hotel

So very well in the doldrums

You said but I say

Not in the least

But in elation really

And with utmost confidence

That’s how things stand today

Upon our subsequent embrace

Near the airport departure gate

So Sal Paradise and I

Now we go our

Separate ways

Each prone to

His own misreading

Both giving birth to new meaning

Mine full of hope 

Come whatever may