“Poets, come out of your closets,
Open your windows, open your doors,
You have been holed up too long,
In your closed worlds…
The trees are still falling
and we’ll to the woods no more.
No time now for sitting in them
As man burns down his own house
to roast his pig.”
Lawrence Ferlinghetti 1975
I am waiting for
Poetry
to be the song of revolution.
Poets of the world, unite,
You have nothing to lose but your chains.
Freedom of speech
Freedom to preach
Freedom to beach
Freedom to reach
Freedom to leach
Freedom to breach
Freedom to teach
Freedom to bleach
Freedom to screech
Freedom to impeach.
Yesterday upon the stair
I saw a man who sat and stare(d)
He reappeared today
Until the cops dragged him away.
This is the moment for all good poets to come to the aid of their pantry
This is the moment to give one hundred and twelve percent
This is the moment when eternity cracks open
This is the moment for celestial reasoning
This is the moment to play your final band
This is the moment for a rebirth of wander
This is the moment to cash in your chintz
This is the moment to sing for your super
This is the moment of wreckening
This is the moment of magi ick
It was a dark and stormy night
The door flew open
Entered the grim reaper
“Do you have any last words?”
Picked up my ukulele
“I got my mojo working
but it just won’t work
on you.”
“I have seen the best minds of our generation
destroyed by boredom at poetry readings.”
Ferlinghetti 1975
