after “Howl” (1956) by Allen Ginsburg
I saw the best minds of my generation
locked-in scribbling syllables at desks
in the basement C floor of Firestone library
covered in a lifetime’s layer of dust,
who skipped last month’s Labyrinth poetry readings
by Komunyakaa & Hayes to puzzle over problem sets
& so missed the audience’s awkward jawdropper
questions about race & poverty responded to but politely unanswered,
who showed for the free Chick-fil-A at Clio convenings
to gorge on chicken strips soggy & cheese pasta
& paper plates when the rest ran out but left
before Kevin Roberts could tell us if we should burn it all or not,
who stopped reading even the headlines off news sites
in favor of gleaning snatches of the rest
of the globe in phone calls with Mom & Pop
& in the ‘gram’s short-form drain rot & Barstool stories,
who whisper inner shouts to only closest confidants
when they begin to doubt whether three rabbis,
two flags, the contents of a haggadah, and Naftali Bennett
walk into a lecture hall is just a bad joke,
who swear all campus needs is for students to go out more,
loosen a little up, take Thursday Friday Saturday night
as a break and then maybe they’ll be ready to think
outside themselves in a non-destructive non-disruptive kind of way,
who choke on obligations as tacky as saltines
that they served themselves at a time when they had less
to worry about now set aside to fester
to address the paper soup & thesis salad on their plate,
who weep rivers and lakes in feral, transmorphic dreams
where they play Atlas, except Earth
has shattered and its shards slash mangle their sad hands
& so they live their lives on mute & Shrug,
who cannot dream anymore because they cannot sleep
anymore, so wrapped in worry that they shiver,
sharp obituary of the days’ failures to rest beneath
their heads where there used to be pillows of wings,
who would stand at campus frontlines in defiance of their schools setting fire
to values more flammable than endowments if not for the warning
of Mahmoud & Rumeysa: this moment is not kind
to counterculture, to culture, to all who counter
the narrowing ideals of those who don’t
have to decide what outweighs the ease of nothing.