IN BLANKETS

In blankets of pure love
of blank verse we survive
this first semester month
of September
at my city reading rooms
up here in Vermont
expecting a touch of snow
beyond the railroad tracks
I'm still alive on my motorcycle
though a few teen age thieves
with snap muscles and ego
tried to steal my hub caps
and hide among the Elm trees
the forest ranger named Hugo
rescues them for me,
we are both are eyewitnesses
to holy misunderstood believers
who hang out in these woods
searching for mushrooms
and wear martyred hair shirts
who stare out at me
by brown bears,
mountain lions and deers
as this once hip poet
transported from Boston
is here for a college reading
he,like St. Francis
is feeding the birds
in this countryside
there are a few citizens
who ignore my Beat words
and unexpected language,
I'm still terrified to hear me
referred to
as a hippie or son
of a wild flower child
all I need
is a catered metamorphosis
like Ovid
or King David experienced
with the private indifference
and intelligence
of the degraded public
sworn to quote the pin heads
of the 24 hour news media cycle
in all their warmed up hysteria,
for my embedded solitude
enslaves no one
though my phrases may hurt
those in authority
who behave in only
in what the state decrees
for them to hear or repeat
verbatim,
hoping my words
may slowly share to explain
and expand their minds
as in that pitiable
Montpelier weird clerk
named Kane
who needs a test for sobriety
along with a beard and brain
in a bureaucrat's return
to work on a blue Monday
who now wants to be cool cat
sitting behind his obelisk
in his grim school expression
along his functionary's desk
reading a bz poem.