He stands against the wall, poised A big grown cigar cradles between his fingers Mouth engulfing the brink of it He takes a few puffs And feels a lot better about things Looking at his manner, his dress All things point to the late 1950s The beats, the times When drugs were still experimental And not an everyday open part of life There were morales back then Which made it easier to bend the rules Which he liked to break Opening his mouth this time for speech And not more cigar His voice blends in with the other intellectuals Talking book and lyric Note and movement The spoken, written, and felt word Passion lifted his spirit higher than anything Born to write and born to love A preacher of language Never without answer, and more important Never without question His eyes miss the smoke rising into the air Instead, they focus on his colleagues To better understand But never know Why he's seventeen years of age And already an old man
10/18/01
