DEAR FERLINGHETTI

DEAR FERLINGHETTI

The terrible things you say

– as a severe yet loving father

to a wayward child –

concerning modern poetry

almost alone ring true

in this time of the assassins

of the muse

to accommodate the shoes they make

to take them into easier places

they have laid a vast concrete plain

over the howling archetypal heartlands

this way being a poet is no risk

one just learns the dance-steps

to the fashionable tunes

and sings

with minimal breath

the wild children you called

exist

I have seen them

am one myself

– so have no fear

for the art

(this is no art

but war!)

it is our path

to demolish

what covers

the rich dark earth of the muse

what suffocates

the breath of its trees

leaving feathers and wing-bones

on the parking lot of souls

Ferlinghetti

I just wanted to tell you

I love you

and thanks

for holding up the banner

of life and death

in this land where editors have outlawed

breath

and that which also is beyond

their inner reach:

heart-music, and true speech.