KENNETH PATCHEN'S WAY

Don't get in Patchen's way
in his electric confidence
of Beats who turn us on
in the war weary Sixties
from jazzed up musical minds
cutting bourgeois body thoughts
by blowing his solitary notes
out from Frisco's waterfront
for a new Renaissance
without censorship
from penchant phrases
under the distraught strain
of unpracticed praise
from him who taught peace
for a generation to sing outdoors
with an anonymous chorus
among wings of birds
from gatlings
as people are shot down
on all fours
machine gunned by armies
where death constantly pores away,
yes, renew us, Kenneth
for who is loved more
than you and your  lyrical comrades
mad Whitman, Blake,Rexroth
who keep away our complacency
and the darkness of political sloths.