LINDA LERNER

WHO DARES INVOKE THE BARD?

(of the reporter who called Dean's cry "a mad howl")

What “mad howl”
Allen would have fumed...

a politician’s voice speeding
past opponents’ leads
thru half a dozen states
ends up whimpering across headlines
next morning
barely breathing
call that a howl...

his ashes stir in its urn
at the very mention...

reminds us who rammed past
Columbia’s hollowed gates
more than fifty years ago
freed poetry a whole decade
marching in robot lockstep
a nation: to breathe in
our own rhythm

the sound that still reverberates
loud as all hell
 

Linda Lerner’s two most recent books are Greatest Hits (1989-2002) from Pudding House & A Koan for Samsara (2003, from Ibbetson Street Press). Several earlier collections were published by Ye Olde Font Shoppe.