I’m shopping “love in the hunting season”

by Devorah Major
     from book I’m shopping “love in the hunting season”

usa fire alarm

the house is burning

we can smell its smoke

sparks singe the curtains
our eyes water as growing fires
sizzle at our front and back doors

on the top floors
some of the residents
are in a thick fog sleep

in the darkened basement
others are trapped

straight–backed and frightened
i sit in the living room
i am not alone

the house is burning

the arsonists say
they will rebuild the frame
with our bones
glue together ashes for the walls

they have no need to
replace the windows
i have a bucket of water at my feet

where should I throw it

by Ed Sanders

          Woodstock, NY
          in memory of my longtime
          friend & literary explorer
          Michael McClure

A bunch of us performed at Town Hall in NYC
in May of ’94 — as the finale of a 5 Day
Conference on the Beat Generation at NYU

I opened the evening by calling
William Burroughs in Lawrence, Kansas
and talked with him from the stage
to the applause of the overflow audience

Later I stood stageside and bantered
with Michael McClure & Gregory Corso  

Some of the best moments at this sort of event
are found in the intimate discourse
standing offstage or in the dressing rooms

I told McClure
that Johnny Depp
had paid 15 grand
to Kerouac’s estate
for one of
          Jack’s jackets

He & Ray Manzarek were
                    just about to go on

& Ferlinghetti
          was toning
                    his final poem

McClure flipped me
the hard Sophoclean eye & said
“I have five or six of those.”  

“So do I,” I replied,
my mind shifting cunningly
from free will
               to Good Will
thinking, of course, that
Depp will need a
2nd coat for when
the 1st is in the cleaners
& another
          for his summer home
                    & one for his manse in Nice