THE LAST REAL POET
The last real poet
Sits alone by himself
Somewhere in a cabin
In Upstate NY
Around the age of 95
Still alive
But they all forgot about him
Years Ago
The prizes
The many lives many
Loves he had once
His memory fades
From time to time
Unsure if it was all real
Meeting Kerouac
Was just like yesterday
Reading upon the stage
Drinking beers & whiskey
Meeting all the Beatniks &
Ferlinghetti
Ginsburg was just
A smart kid, Corso a punk
Who swore a lot
And clamored
For everyone’s attention
Whining
He remembers
The applause and the hip
Hot beautiful girl with long brown
Hair who took him home
That night
Only to receive
A long distance call
From her nine months
Later
Hey
Daddy’ O
What gives?
Where’s the
Dough?
So
He wrote
And wrote
And wrote
Was published
Everywhere
His books now rare
Receives letters
Every now & then
From college kids
Who found one of
His books at a library dollar
Sale, praising him
As a genius, a poet
But the literary cannon
Doesn’t
Never cares
Or gives in
Or gives a shit
Recognize
Beauty or sadness
Street poets or
Vagabonds
Madness or un-formalist
Poetry
Far too consumed
With the fear of
Honesty, cancel
Culture or a frightful
Reckoning
When most
Of his kind are
All dead
His legacy
Torn from the days
The pages of true
Freedom & non censorship
We were all labeled “ Communists”
For publishing
The Truth
Stood
Behind
Martin Luther King
And at Jack’s
Grave the same
Decade
Saw
The world
His words helped
To create only
To be betrayed
By all those hippies
Who traded in their love
For the mighty dollar
“Sorry”
But we can’t
Publish you
Your work
Just doesn’t
Seem to fit
We just want
To hear another
Version of the same old
Shit we just published
Last week
“Fuck Off”
His rough voice says
Fuck. Off.
With your
Boring trite mighty
White ass kissing
Journal of garbage
Packaged in flowers
That follows trends
Do you have a Facebook?
An Instagram?
Fuck no.
Poetry
Is meant to live
Upon the page
And not
On some ridiculous
Flavor of the month
TV screen
Takes a shot
Of whiskey
Goes to sleep
And dreams
Where he and
Mingus are
Shooting pool
In a NYC dive bar
And
He smacks
Some faux celebrity
Writer in the head
Smoking a diva stick
For talking too much
And being
Annoying
The last real poet
Sat alone by himself
Somewhere in a cabin
In Upstate NY
And last night he died
Around the age of 95
A small obituary
Appeared in the NY Times
And thousands
Of writers & poets
On their computers
Put up memorials with
His poems claiming
He was a genius
And I’ve read all
His books
Which
Two months later
Appeared in all the
Bookstores
Published by
The boring trite mighty
White ass kissing
Journal of garbage
Packaged in flowers
That follows trends
Who bought
All the rights
To his life
With the sales pitch:
He was friends with Kerouac
And Bukowski before Bukowski
He was The Last Real Poet
Buried now
In an unassuming pauper’s
Grave
R.M. Engelhardt is a poet, writer & author whose work over the last 30 years has been published in a wide number of journals and zines. He currently lives & writes in Upstate NY and is the Editor of the Small Indie Poetry Press Dead Man’s Press Ink as well as the creator of the group “Poets Against The Extinction Of America”. His new book is ” The Bones Of Our Existence, A Journal 2046″
