BZ BIRTHDAY:JAN. 8

When a poet arrives
at the world's backstage
few critics are alarmed
at the Apollo theater
in Manhattan's Harlem
that he survives with alto sax
to show up with live music
charmed by his knowable Muse
to read from his poetry,
then relaxes to schmooze
over his solo page,
born the same day
of Elvis Presley birth
has an early encounter worthy
of an earth -wise musical gaze
studies classical and jazz
shaped at a young age,
BZ loves swans on the Cape
art and what is modern-
Eliot, Crane and Auden
jams as a kid with John Cage
in a metamorphosis focused
and sifted as a grain of wheat
would go into sands of solitude
in the desert like the Baptist
eating locusts and honey
and washing another Brother's feet,
goes in the wintry snow
like his hero Dr. Zhivago
to a monastery for a retreat
when the gods set him loose
and escapes as a Beat.