I remember, not often,
sat opposite some young poet
sweating his hyperbole over the starving audience
in a New England hole
how you said I spoke like Goethe
and listened like Beethoven,
strung out on tunes of dirge
you said I sat like Buddha
and stood like Liszt,
laying in bare skid row dampness
you said I made love like the sun
and breathed like a Ginsberg flame
and all I did was stare
all I did was lie awake
when I might have slept like
moonrays in a polar snowstorm
all I did was count the stars
n stroll pocket handed down
midnight shuffle streets
all I did was know you were there
waiting to dance to the locust orchestra.
I feel like the fool
I look like the bum
and even as the ink is wet
I feel like the only survivor.

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