Sunday, June 16, 2019

only the words live on






















photo by Sandra L Hazley

it seemed appropriate to be re-reading
     howl
in a dusty old chair in the key west used bookstore
just up the street from the cemetery
where souls still living or dead or in purgatory
roam on over and then spread quietly
throughout the stacks
leaving musty remembrances
falling into other worlds and dimensions
before during and after ginsberg

touching a most personal copy of a coney island of the mind
     ferlinghetti mischievously smiling on the wall

notes in the margins of desolation angels
that i bought and eventually lost
or gave away
likely buried now with kerouac

and then there was a signed chapbook from 1972 (?)
     by lyn lifshin
that passed thru my hands momentarily
and then back into a cluttered box only to be lost or sold
as we returned a couple days later

the bookstore has been gone for many years now
the reading lamps all removed and replaced
by sterile corporate logos no doubt
honestly it might be too painful to look inside
the old wood frame building
hoping to hear creaking floors
and voices

--- e b bortz

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