Monday, June 30, 2014

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

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