W.D. SNODGRASS'S CONFESSION
(1926-2009)

You had been
to public and private
confessional school
not only as a visitor
throwing your papers
from the artist's ashcan
and opening the draw
to the tight day dreams
in your dry eye ruminations
of erasing lines and rules
off white blackboards
in your own uniqueness
minding your own business
on the first hand shelf
of your personal darkness
to expose a current
of rolled up electric light
preparing the land way
for footsteps of the Beats
who hide in the corner
not hoarding words
by long lines in the day
not buckled in an armchair
but rushing to own
an oral profession of oracles
washing their feet
in a miracle of words.