Well-Lindsay Slattery, one of my Creative Writing Students at Endicott College in Beverly, Mass.,  sent me a poem dedicated to Allen Ginsberg–the author of the groundbreaking poem Howl. Lindsay works at MASS LEAP, a Somerville-based literary outreach program founded by Jade Sylvan.

Alpha Coyote

In memory of Allen Ginsberg

I would have liked to touch your beard
Pick out the crumbs of dried marijuana leaves
The bits of paper and crumpled issues of Time
The resin and left over America blown to bits of bits.
And maybe when I got down to your chin,
I’d seal my eyes with the unreliable glue of wavering will
And maybe I’d feel Peter Orlovsky’s final caress.
I’d know what it feels like to be somebody else’s angel
In the vast watery tundra of a too-hot-too-cold glacial hell
In the narrow, busy streets and dank allies of an urban hell
In the nocturnal hours trapped inside the abnormal
Toes and fingers and belly button and genitals and
Screaming silently for whatever peace you found—hell.
And all any of us want is to exist without being spotted
Or pegged for dead because of the lead we take and
The balls we have to say “I don’t have any plans for the future.
I don’t want your founding fathers in my pockets
Or your dreams planted immovably behind my corneas
So kindly piss off and leave me to my silly words.”
Silly words were all you needed. Silly words and love.
And even what you needed was never to be taken seriously
Because life is only about eighty years long, hopefully less.
And why waste eighty years being in a suit and tie,
Hetero sexual, a nurse, a phony, a bull dog, an asshole
Or anything other than the one who alternates walking
And running down the street, singing each to each a song
About being oneself and living sans fear and pissing off
Everyone who has the nerve to be asleep at three AM.
We’ve come to know no matter what anyone tells you, eighty years
Is a really long time, and we’re not making the best of it
Because it’s too short, we’re making the best of a LONG struggle.
An honest to jehova zeus flying spaghetti monster struggle,
And by those three we’ll spend it soaking up knowledge
If we can, and by those three we’ll spend it ranting,
Mad as we might sound or little sense as we make…
We’ll spend it like you did, high on Peyote and ink and quill.
We’ll sop it up and waste it to everyone else and enjoy
The taste of the neon fruits you threw at our heads
Because they made us think. And we needed to think.

– Lindsay Slattery

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