By the passed humanity,
whose active progeny is
the heart beat rocking my sense
of soul—as I clutch the
leather-bound covers of
Burroughs, of Whitman, di Prima
and Ginsberg, in the soft lamp
night, rain shadows wrapped against
windows, me, folded into
fresh sheets, with a cup of tea;
hungry, Alive, washed, I sing—

and selfish do I less than
pause before the monkey juts
to this:

I want their approval.
Permission?

Yes. I long for it.

I should like very much to
be thought profound —to whisper
stoic prophecies of
multitudes, multitudes; to
dance ready to call us kin—
and more than that, I wish to
be profound. To authentically
encapsulate human
philosophy, sense of fine
self, and that rare lavish laugh;
to play the credible game.

A stack of books with names that
fill me with joy and despair
perches high, a structural
accomplishment on the walls
of my wooden desk.

Shall I join?
Without the plagiarism?
Without the imitation
that rocks mind to page after
I return Kafka to the stack?

My work is a quilt. Rendered
patches from snippets of verse
the prose that seeps from the spines
of the prolific. Shall I

ever join?

Could I even?

The reader brings his or her own perspective to a poem and gives it meaning. Here is mine: