Poet Muses (Part 1)

Poet Muses (Part 1)

I.

Carl Sandburg was the quiet one
in the ginger-bread cottage
a few blocks from Lake Michigan
sitting with the avant-garde
of modern 1918 Chicago.

Yet it is his voice
ringing out loud and clear
from that group
even reaching me
a hundred years later
in the land of hillbillies.

Jack Kerouac
drank coffee for two weeks straight
ingesting almost nothing else
as he hunt and pecked
his 1000 foot scroll.

The scroll
that simulated the rhythm of the road
the ticker tack
of road signs
with Burma Shave poetry.

Charles Bukowski
and his ode
to the drunk lady's legs
and what
awaited him where they
came together.

Old barfly Buk
firing on all cylinders
to the end.

Ginsberg's courage
to put his shoulder to the wheel
the howl that
changed America.

Hold on to your hats
ladies
this is a ride through Hell.

Patti Smith
bringing her news
from a place called space
the land of 1000 horses
Burroughs, Morrison and Rimbaud
her three horsemen.

Delmore and Lou
meet in the forest
of the undiscovered country.

-Will Dockery