THE PORTABLE BEAT READER

this fat ol' yellowed book
rescued from amid the flotsam of Goodwill
and my companion for weeks now
hauled everywhere like a bible

and inside live the ghosts
of ferlinghetti
and diprima
and lew welch
and corso
and good ol' jack kerouac
whose prose is thick as poetry
and ginsberg
and william burroughs
and almost all who haunt the works
of dylan and buk and kesey
(whose ghost lives here among them)
and many others who opened the gates
for those who came after
and those who will come
and so for all of us who aspire to poetry
so that even folks who never
touched upon their writings
can bask in the warmth
of their warm lunatic light