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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