Dear Allen

I wonder what you would do
if you were here this new years eve
I'm happy to report
handsome boys still ride the crosstown bus
read poetry     smile
at strangers who smile back
jazz plays in basement doorways
(Miles
          Monk
                   Coltrane       giant
                                                steps)
streetlights bestow halos on panhandlers
businessmen are happy money's in the bank
America running jumping standing still
this last december week
of this last december year

end of the year decade century millennium
everyone seems poised on the brink
America's happy with itself    pleased
to have made it (at last)
                   with hope (hopefully) too
but America never gets enough

America never gets enough hope
America never gets enough of anything 
civil rights             not enough rights
          two world wars                not enough wars
                   Newark Watts D.C.         not enough of pain
                             Watergate             not enough of politics
Dallas Memphis              not enough saints
          Iran/contra   not enough money
                   Reagan/Bush         not enough of sweet talk
                             nuclear winter not enough of bombs   
White House sex not enough sex       
          Congress sex talk not enough sex talk        
                   good drugs not enough good drugs
                             rock & roll not enough rock & roll

enough is never enough
in this American millennium

                             .      .      .       .
         
Dear Allen

I'm proposing you the new Father Time
for this third millennium   a thousand-year party
no more blackrob'd old man icon
no more ancient doddering fool
no more hourglass or crook'd scythe

in Prague 1965
you were King of the May
this should be a piece of cake

you in top hat     stars & stripes
with harmonium at your side
bearded     smiling      (or serious too
in hornrimm'd glasses)
with a young man always there
ready to hoist yr pump organ
the new millennial hip Father Time

what d'you say
satisfaction guaranteed
or your millennium back

                             .      .       .      .

Dear Allen

I wonder what yr doing this new years eve
must be some crazy scene 
Jesus & Mohammed
          Walt putting the moves on Neal
                   Jack and Gautama discussing the dharma
                             you rolling the joints
(finest gage at low low prices)
imagine the conversation
poetics                  transcendence
          a love supreme ...
(pls tell Whitman we have the same
                   birthday      May 31)

later             no time for talk
party hats askew after serious drink
give Jack that bliss'd out sloppy blowjob
let Bill cop the immaculate fix
keep Neal away from the hydrogen jukebox
          but let him drive the bus

most of all
give America the dope of hope
in this new year 
                   new decade 
                             new century 
                                      new millennium
give America the big hope blowjob
to last a thousand years
          to last a thousand years
                   to last a thousand years 
                             let it be enough
                   to last a thousand years
Let there finally be enough
          enough America to get it right
                   enough time to get it right
                             enough love to get it right
                                      enough hope to get it right
                                                enough daylight to get it right
                                                          enough night