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!