Upon Reading a Patronizing Review of Ferlinghetti’s Delightful and Revelatory Entertainment, Little Boy



The only problem with the Proletariat
Is obeying the pretentious ***** that
Insist on calling us the Proletariat -

Resist their Insist!

For I will not be labeled by some artsy-crat

to be in love is such a beautiful thing
if you are unafraid of the heartbreak
that is sure to come
one of these days
when the realization that keeping secrets of our
own means that they must have
some secrets they are holding from you on
how they act and they talk when
you’re not around
and it ***** and it hurts
almost as much as when you realize that


being in love can be a beautiful thing
if you don’t mind the occasional
one sided worshipping
on the broken pew of your heart
thinking about the future and the possibility that things might
or will
fall apart


being in love can be a beautiful thing
as long as you’re okay with constant static
lingering in the street light of their love
found flickering directly above the lonely
bench on the corner of melancholy st. where
it’s okay to sit in the haze and in the rain
because you have their love keeping you warm


being in love is nice
if you never mind being a
masterpiece never balanced, some sort
of discord throwing everything off
doomed to a composition but
never remaining composed

being in love is nice if you can love
in the dark because
in the light,
in the light there’s nothing to see
most times
if only a blank gaze at best
but you flip the switch
and love in the dark anyways because you know
it’s what you do best


being in love is alright if the
idea of having them at their worst and
not only at their best doesn’t
scare you too much
because being in love sometimes means
falling in love with them at their worst
and learning to love unconditionally


being in love is alright if
you can learn to treasure the time spent
away from them
knowing that the time apart is what makes
the time together
the sweetest
and that it’s worth it in the end


to be in love is fine
I guess
if at every notion of their success
you feel a happy sadness in your chest-
the happiness for theirs
and the sadness in finding
that the joy you
bring them might be
surpassed and the slightest thought
of that is just enough
to remind you that someday
you could be replaced


but don’t get me wrong,
please don’t get me wrong

to be in love  is to understand that
you’ll never have all of them-
to understand that in the storm of their body
and the nourishment of their breath
must come with the lightning and
maybe that’s why people call people
in love
lovestruck


but hey,

to be in love

to be in love is one of the
most pure things on earth
where the worst part is the innocence
and the best part  is the innocence
and the fragility
and the glow
and the fulfillment
and the loving in the dark
and living in the light

oh, to be in love
is the greatest thing because
somehow
loving a
silent film masterpiece
where their eyes never speak
is all you’ve ever needed

Your love rains down
                                       from the shower head.

Sharp needles of fire
                                                                ­                  dousing cold feet.

                                   It feels like daggers,

                                               and wouldn't be so,

if I hadn't lingered for so long,
                                                                           in my frigid hesitancy.

Wild Dreams Of A New Beginning**

There's a breathless hush on the freeway tonight
Beyond the ledges of concrete
restaurants fall into dreams
with candlelight couples
Lost Alexandria still burns
in a billion lightbulbs
Lives cross lives
idling at stoplights
Beyond the cloverleaf turnoffs
'Souls eat souls in the general emptiness'
A piano concerto comes out a kitchen window
A yogi speaks at Ojai
'It's all taking pace in one mind'
On the lawn among the trees
lovers are listening
for the master to tell them they are one
with the universe
Eyes smell flowers and become them
There's a deathless hush
on the freeway tonight
as a Pacific tidal wave a mile high
sweeps in
Los Angeles breathes its last gas
and sinks into the sea like the Titanic all lights lit
Nine minutes later Willa Cather's Nebraska
sinks with it
The sea comes over in Utah
Mormon tabernacles washed away like barnacles
Coyotes are confounded & swim nowhere
An orchestra onstage in Omaha
keeps on playing Handel's Water Music
Horns fill with water
ans bass players float away on their instruments
clutching them like lovers horizontal
Chicago's Loop becomes a rollercoaster
Skyscrapers filled like water glasses
Great Lakes mixed with Buddhist brine
Great Books watered down in Evanston
Milwaukee beer topped with sea foam
Beau Fleuve of Buffalo suddenly become salt
Manhatten Island swept clean in sixteen seconds
buried masts of Amsterdam arise
as the great wave sweeps on Eastward
to wash away over-age Camembert Europe
manhatta steaming in sea-vines
the washed land awakes again to wilderness
the only sound a vast thrumming of crickets
a cry of seabirds high over
in empty eternity
as the Hudson retakes its thickets
and Indians reclaim their canoes

I Am Waiting**

I am waiting for my case to come up  
and I am waiting
for a rebirth of wonder
and I am waiting for someone
to really discover America
and wail
and I am waiting  
for the discovery
of a new symbolic western frontier  
and I am waiting  
for the American Eagle
to really spread its wings
and straighten up and fly right
and I am waiting
for the Age of Anxiety
to drop dead
and I am waiting
for the war to be fought
which will make the world safe
for anarchy
and I am waiting
for the final withering away
of all governments
and I am perpetually awaiting
a rebirth of wonder

I am waiting for the Second Coming  
and I am waiting
for a religious revival
to sweep thru the state of Arizona  
and I am waiting
for the Grapes of Wrath to be stored  
and I am waiting
for them to prove
that God is really American
and I am waiting
to see God on television
piped onto church altars
if only they can find  
the right channel  
to tune in on
and I am waiting
for the Last Supper to be served again
with a strange new appetizer
and I am perpetually awaiting
a rebirth of wonder

I am waiting for my number to be called
and I am waiting
for the Salvation Army to take over
and I am waiting
for the meek to be blessed
and inherit the earth  
without taxes
and I am waiting
for forests and animals
to reclaim the earth as theirs
and I am waiting
for a way to be devised
to destroy all nationalisms
without killing anybody
and I am waiting
for linnets and planets to fall like rain
and I am waiting for lovers and weepers
to lie down together again
in a new rebirth of wonder

I am waiting for the Great Divide to be crossed  
and I am anxiously waiting
for the secret of eternal life to be discovered  
by an obscure general practitioner
and I am waiting
for the storms of life
to be over
and I am waiting
to set sail for happiness
and I am waiting
for a reconstructed Mayflower
to reach America
with its picture story and tv rights
sold in advance to the natives
and I am waiting
for the lost music to sound again
in the Lost Continent
in a new rebirth of wonder

I am waiting for the day
that maketh all things clear
and I am awaiting retribution
for what America did  
to Tom Sawyer  
and I am waiting
for Alice in Wonderland
to retransmit to me
her total dream of innocence
and I am waiting
for Childe Roland to come
to the final darkest tower
and I am waiting  
for Aphrodite
to grow live arms
at a final disarmament conference
in a new rebirth of wonder

I am waiting
to get some intimations
of immortality
by recollecting my early childhood
and I am waiting
for the green mornings to come again  
youth’s dumb green fields come back again
and I am waiting
for some strains of unpremeditated art
to shake my typewriter
and I am waiting to write
the great indelible poem
and I am waiting
for the last long careless rapture
and I am perpetually waiting
for the fleeing lovers on the Grecian Urn  
to catch each other up at last
and embrace
and I am awaiting  
perpetually and forever
a renaissance of wonder