To My Poet Friends on an American Holy Day
Ally, your new manuscript
is a candle inside
my heart to keep loss away
even a blub is not enough
to say how much those words
meant as the scraped
against
memory and bone
but I appreciate all the
manuscripts
I recently finished
advances of Borczon and Clevenger
deep riots felt in the
ridges of the heart
I think of poems Nikki,
Renee
and I construct via text
I think of Julio’s birthday
greetings
his request that if I had
any
wishes he would happily
drop
them in the Grand Canyon
for me
We gathered as friends
yesterday
an American holy day
laughing, sharing
a little heavy from the
drink
its always a joy hear
Silsbe’s work
today its his New Kids on
the Block story
complete with lascivious
dancing
and self-groping, or Pajich
the way he vibrates when
he tells stories, or to
have Irwin’s
hand on my shoulder to
steady
himself as he laughs in
that
distinct staccato way or
Collins quiet calm turning
every poem
into an ocean you’ll never
see all of
I consider voice often, the
auditory
illusions that may or may
not be
illusions
I read every day even if
it’s a poem or two online
maybe one of Grochalski
gruff right hooks
or Benger’s trailer park
psalms
or some deep voice of the
past
say William Wantling or
Jack Micheline
Li Po or Hikmet, so many
more
so many people inspire me
I read now because I can’t
be without
those voices
those voices steer me
keep me steady
It seems to me those voices
weird and disparate, my
poet friends
these oddball mystic wanderers
in every corner of this
bloated
dying experiment of America
we shout
some deep consciousness
some lost empathy
we want others to believe
this America is
appropriation
of a dream, it is not the
America
we should ever believe it
should be
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