Homework From Allen Ginsberg
 		             -June 3rd, 2023
                                                        	-
Today on your birthday Patti Smith posted she’s in Malmo
thinking of Rimbaud & Howl & I’m thinking of how 
on our first Earth Day you knew it could happen – 
I was a 9th grader in Kent when you came as a guest,
wrote a poem just for us: humm humm humm
drop your seed syllable/ into the usa’s body
& now we need you more than ever to write 
about what’s going on in New York City– 
how the sky’s covered up with smoke
from a million trees that burn like cigarettes, 
burning packs of trees way worse than Lucky Strikes –
& not at all how we thought it would go this June
after we walked the High Line where we could see far out
over the Hudson the new free public park pier, more spring
gardens, everything scrubbed so clean we never thought 
clouds of particles could come so far down 
from the north into our lungs & now we can’t stop
thinking about your prophetic voice & the Whitney exhibit –
the apocalyptic vision of what could soon be coming, people 
who could be us videoed outside of tents, cleaning up
toxic waste after rising waters in subways, a guy who’s stayed put 
in a Phoenix suburb, even if he has no water or power, 
he isn’t leaving this house he purchased but still 
he’s going to take the subsidies from a government 
he doesn’t believe in –it’s all so believable 
while what’s happening now almost isn’t so I’ve got to write
my way into the surreal the way Rimbaud did
when he got into the brains of all who came after  –
like you did, freed to use profanity & pain, to deconstruct
the world we had left, & now it’s my homework,   my time
to tell the tales of undoing, name states that aren’t safe.
let it be known this is climate change & trans people in Florida
are seeking passage out – nothing’s free of smoke, dried up trees 
speak freely & we all need to follow your seed path.

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I am excited to share these poems on a topic that is so integral to my voice as a poet. I have been writing essays, flash memoir and poetry on themes of social justice and the environment for many years with my work appearing in a number of anthologies and journals including the Monterey Review and the MacGuffin. My first book of poetry, Beneath the Blue Umbrella, will be coming out with Finishing Line Press at the end of this year.