To the Bobbydazzlers

To the Bobbydazzlers

To the Bobbydazzlers

American poets!
you have saved
America from
its reputation
if not its fate
& you saved me
too, in 1970
when I first
breathed freely
in Ted Berrigan’s
Sonnets, escaping
the talented earache of Modern
Poetry.
                       Sitting
on the beach I
look towards you
but the curve
of the Pacific
gets in the way
& I see stars
instead knocked
out by your poems
American poets,
the Great Dead
are smiling
in your faces.
I salute their
luminous hum!