Lawrence Ferlinghetti Is Alive! by Emily Sernaker - Rattle: Poetry (original) (raw)

I say, to a man in the drug store

check-out line not completely

out of nowhere. He’s wearing

a black and white City Lights shirt

with Lawrence’s handwriting.

Do you know Ferlinghetti? I ask

thinking of that baseball canto

poem: how does it start? Watching

baseball, eating popcorn, sitting

in the sun, reading Ezra Pound …

Yes I do! Is he still alive?

And what a gift that I get to

say the good news.

An old man is alive

in San Francisco, with all of its

pop-ups and start-ups

there is still poetry. The breeze

of the bay is tipping his black

fisherman’s hat forward. A man

who telegrammed

Ginsberg asking: When

do I get the manuscript?

A man who went to trial,

gets small voices printed

even still. Not just

poems, not just paintings,

not just space. Listen.

An old man who lives

in a little apartment

is taking his daily

walk where birds break

at the crest of the park.

Dogs run off their leashes.

The sun won’t go down

for hours. I swear to God

there are good ways

to live this life.