GINSBERG'S GUIDE

You stood up to all the verbs
you would not adjust
to Passover's bitter herbs
or Easter's story of hope
you preferred cruising along
in the face of it
as a poet of howl
getting high on dope
saying on Merv Griffin's show
there is nothing wrong
with a thirst for a bong
from the Queens sweat lodge
with a towel over your head
when at my first urban read
with a rugby star next to him
I felt strange lips pecking
at the nape of my neck
like a wise wizened owl
but not wanting any vatic fuss
or to hear any dramatic song
from your sitar on our laps
at the edge of Indian summer
with an August insomnia's collapse
pretending we were in living
in Roman gladiator or pagan times
hearing the impending taps
at the door to an apocalypse,
there is no crime Allen
for affectionate love,
only your poor mother
did not get the Hitler-Stalin
crime connection in a Devil's pact
in fact ,she was still smarting
from the direction of pogroms
in Russia, Hungary or Romania
where fascism was aiming
its arrows at
as Dylan sang to us, post-war
"The times were a changing".