I Watched Allen Ginsberg and Wished

(this poem is incomplete)


I Watched Allen Ginsberg and Wished

I watched Allen Ginsberg,
Mouth screwed to one side
Like a car with a headlight
Out,
His words
Straining through lips
No longer functioning
At 100%.

He worked his way
Through "Howl"
As pictures of
Kerouac, Cassidy, Burroughs
Flashed,
and I cried.

Not for the best minds
My generation,
Nor for the long-ago
Passing of the bard.

I cried for the dying embers
In my chest.
I cried for the darkness
Tightening over my eyes.
I cried for the dusty land
Yeilding no crop.
I cried, for these strength-sapped
Legs that could not carry
The length if the journey,
Watching my homeland perish.

He of withered eye
And lip,
But not of mind.
And I?
Youth courses through
These veins
Not yet thirty.

Is it true,
They no longer make them
Like they used to?
Or do I just lack the fire
That stoked steam into the engines
Of the previous models?