Raggedy Poet Society

by Ralph Dumain

White people who didn't age well
       populated the venue.
American culture, the words your death
       left behind
              fall stiffly,
              and I step away. . .

It may be that Ginsberg will not last
       and that window of hope was a mirage.
Our bounce absorbed, what we bounce off
       now is not the same,
       and all sounds are stripped of warmth.

So what if we don't matter?
       There's intensity in hiding,
       in every corner of joy,
              examples we set tossed in the tide of violence,
              quaint structures in an anxious sea of LOL.

Buffalo, NY
6 June 2010