Sunday, November 1, 2015

ALL SOULS LITANY OF WRITERS













Holy, holy, holy!

Holy the writers
Holy the written

Holy:

Saint Penny-a-Word
    Charles Dickens
Slumming in London
    Holy his cries of
          foul and shame
  
Holy:

Saint Walt Whitman
    singing the body
        electric
Holy his multitude of selves
    stretched across America

Holy:

Saint Emily Dickinson
    in her infinity of rooms
changing and charging
            language

Holy, and have mercy on us,

Saint Eugene O'Neill
    martyr to family,
and terrible memory

Holy:

Saint Henry Miller
    embracing everything
because everything was

Holy!

Saint Anais Nin
     patroness of dream

    Holy!

And have mercy on us,

Saint Jack Kerouac
    Holy Jack
who suffered and died
    a skid-road
    mountain-top
    word-drunk
Franciscan Bohdisatva
        
        Sancte:

Santo Pablo Neruda
    whose heart
held his country
    and whose lyrics
encircled the world

        Sancte:

Santo Victor Jara
    whose hands
were blazing

Holy, and have mercy on us,

Saint Allen Ginsberg
    Holy
        Queer
            Hindu -Bu-Jew
whose crazy wisdom touched us all

        Holy:

Saint William Seward
    Junky Queer Burroughs
who devoured the Naked Lunch
looked into the abyss
    saw the Wild Boys
    the centipedes
    the assassins;
Holy Bill Burroughs
Winking at blood-soaked time
    and wrapping his last breath around

            Love!

Holy the writers
who wrap their breath
around
                    
            Love!

Holy the writers
Holy the written
Holy the word

Holy!

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