BECKETT'S TOUCH

Much has been made
of a  numbing comparison
from my plays and poetry
to Beckett
by French critics
at our melancholic furtive ways
of putting dramatic grave words
on humanity's headstones
as we both are born free
hating fascism's dictatorship
and sated scurrilous censorship
known as a spilled out memory
in Germany and Italy
renouncing a hated tyranny
under our eyelids
of a hidden idolatry
and ideology that makes
for a human traffic of slavery
Samuel and I will not succumb
to a charismatic world
now guided by
the deaf and dumb.