Gene Justice
Although "Homage" is not written in any of the more traditional forms, it has a clear connection, in both form and content, to Allen Ginsberg's poem "To Aunt Rose".
___________________________________________
Homage
Jacky—now—staring from photographs
gloom brow & half-shadow stony mouth set
against your sadness, arm cocked round the shoulder
of your best lover gazing
into a future you felt no love for, face in lines
not of defiance (though the myth
would have it so),
but honest bewilderment
& transitive saintly pride you taught me
the words to, & my faltering
goop-eyed meltdowns with you
and everyone in the audience, ghosting
the back table candlelight,
me dreaming Andy Kaufman wild bearded & hip deep
in conversation
with the hand of SenĚor Wences,
your sad chin balanced on upturned palm between
—beery light around your shared table,
hair wreathed in divine smoke hating your sweat secretly
(somewhere you must have known angels intimately,
found in what they lack a source of envy)
—that year I read everything you wrote, in gulps
during lunch at the factory, munching apples,
nights friends were out dancing & drunk,
my dreaming head propped over a book
& were you dead like old Bill told it, released from the spasm of all being,
or stuck somewhere in between again—
me ignorant envious through your words, mind gasping in wonder
at the release of heavy drink & your blood-filled head.
Jacky
I'm sad & they won't let me be, say I've no reason to be,
your neon redbrick heaven I've never seen—
they say I can’t miss what I’ve never been, and if I want to walk
like that--shoulder to shoulder with god like a brother,
proud manic words pouring out of us like Charlie Parker sax solo,
pan-american road flights blossoming into
an eternity of fast cars
welcoming you like a father, in a rattling of worn-down adjectives
bumping into each other like boxcars shaking
the blue vast Arizona desert sky—
if that’s what I want, then that’s just something
I’ve read in a book, & never known.
They name streets and schools after you now, you’re respectable,
they keep the little books in print, three to a volume,
American kids that’ve never read you
scribble your name in the back of textbooks
with peace signs & political slogans
I don’t know if this makes you smile
last time I saw you was the picture
chin resting on the back of the chair
your mother sat in, you visibly bloated
looking older than she did
they made you an angel long ago
Jacky.
_________________
Gene Justice is currently battling the effects of reverse culture shock after a seven and a half year expatriation that found him residing on three different continents. A carpenter's apprentice by day and a struggling writer by night, he currently resides in Oklahoma. In the past, he has worked in a variety of capacities, including childcare worker, ESL teacher, and Creative Writing teacher at the community college level. His prose and poetry have appeared online in Muse Apprentice Guild, Lotus Blooms Journal, Writers Against War, poeticdiversity, and in print in In Our Own Words: A Generation Defining Itself, Vol. 6 and Literary Angles: the second year of poeticdiversity.