BEACON CHAMBER ROOMS
( BOSTON,1974)

Rooms to rent sign
for a student apartment
making turns off the freeway
approaching Boston
with the lights out early
needing a night to stay
checking in up on Beacon
puts his fine art books away
before the night owls
are heard in chorus
on my nine windows
before Morpheus' descent
with his landscaped shadows
sinks over these pantry boarders
covering this sleep house
while reading Edgar Poe
in the wooden den
of a sensitized space
a Boston abstract painter
who knew Phillip Guston
enjoys his environmental art
invites us to his future
new gallery on Newbury St.
near the Common,
the solitary play cards
like gin rummy or canasta
other to yield to checkers
or chess among pawns
kings or queen
in a parlor of drinkers
while armchair philosophers
think of Kant or Kierkegaard
while a once famous pianist
related to my great aunt
plays a Chopin sonata,
an actor recites his lines
the local bard wrote for him
desiring new cadences
waiting for September's dawn
with a dry eyed gentleman
from Athens, Greece
retelling us of Byron's decadence
with an old myth and legend
of the plucking at Jason's fleece
outside are sirens by all night
yellow and red hacks
of emergency cabs
not knowing what mid-sleep
trembles in underground circles
as morning bird sound calls
and a cool clarinet plays jazz
now to climb up out of bed
with a church hymn book
in my hand to sing
with a cogency
by a first sunlight search
on the grounds for a coffee cup
and a slice of Danish cheese
in a prophet's homestead
asking the Almighty twice
to bring me
an increase of money
not left in my glove compartment
for any contingency
yet holding on to  these memories
which will always keep
me in perfect peace.