JACK KEROUAC'S TIME

Your language
follows all time pieces
up the watching stair
of verses you share
in hollow coffee houses
of the 1950's cafes
like the Red Drum
where your grief fills
huge mugs joined
in the sublime jazz
with your notes
like landscapes
remain open seas
of our likely correspondence
offering uneasy poems
when your shirt
is taken off on the road
between life and departure
remaining the same bodies
from the century's dust
as visionary flavors
crowd forty candles.