WHEN THE LONG SHADOW OF YOUR SOUL

the spirit passes through different prisms in different ways
a drop of candlelight, veiled and cloistered with Newtonian arrow
or the yawn of genius, awakened to some dawning epiphany
when the night has been so long and full of toil
that memory forgets its dark claims, its nocturnal truth

when the long shadow of your soul awakens
you come alive to yourself and no one else
and unexpectedly, it feels alight

through amnesia the voice of musing
the hard constant driving truth of diesel, coal, oak or bone
that never stops, never is false or falsely humored

allen ginsberg may have despaired once, feeling that he had not despaired enough
looking at the face of the ghetto and the weary nights false
the false chaps, the chapped lips, the ghetto bumps

given over to decay and nonexistent rhyme
with broken, candy teeth, danish conspiracy
disdainful and without irony
perhaps he hadn't read the beat-wax poets on time
or felt falsely primed by their hot hips and cudgeled bums
or he just couldn't get enough before his time

with saul bellow or jellyrumps weinstein rumpin' bump-melody
django falls nightly into bluejzz sleep and riff-raff gin
hellbent on playing the coltrane tune and pursed-lip nosering gaff
what never suaves the lips or drycane hairgel travolta
selling out installments and streetsign boredom