John Biscello

They kill poets
in these parts
don’t they?
When I got here
I saw Walt Whitman’s
wizened head out back
impaled on a stake
flies buzzing round its
concomitant rot and stench
I heard one of the locals say
it was the worst kind of tourist trap
this voodoo orb
functioning like a magnet
drawing a swarm of zombies to brains
or moths to flames
take your pick
after all it’s America
And then I heard about the man
who wasn’t satisfied with Anne Sexton’s suicide
no he was still on her
constantly telling her ghost
to go to hell
and to consecrate his venom
he’d collect and burn all her poems
never realizing that Fahrenheit 451
was a myth
imagine trying to burn
pieces of the sun
with mortally wrung flames
I know they kill
poets in these parts
because the dismembered
remains of Allen Ginsberg
the man that Norman Mailer
once called the bravest four eyed kike
in the whole land
yes that man
scattered all over
screaming psych wards
and fallacious newprint
meant to stir the cauldron
of bloody bathwater
babies
and wives
and flybynight junkies
that went under
and never came back up
the final glubs
and so much more
resounding in the bardic echo
of Ginsberg’s howl
you know
that unkillable sound
with no fixed location
that lighted locust
of a drone
that you keep hearing
and hearing
beyond the wax
America are you listening?
I know for a fact
that they kill poets
in these parts
because that girl
who lived down the block from me
that girl who fashioned her silence
and trauma into a two-ton goddess
of love and redemption
yea her
you know the one I’m talking about
the nameless parishioner
of heart
who lives
and dwells
and breeds
and dreams
where words are funneled
through the eye of a storm
now do you remember
that’s the girl
the one you tried to kill
shame desecrate decimate
the list of offenses
goes on and on
and we regret to inform you
that your assasination attempts
will continue to meet failure
because you see
poets
in those most vital parts
from which songs of fury
innocence and hope arise
cannot be killed off
so you misewell
lay down your arms
and find out what Beauty
immortal to the touch
might be offering in exchange
for love
and praise.