For Gregory Corso

I'll miss you,
who did better than I did
at keeping the faith of poets,
staying true.

It's as if you couldn't
do otherwise,
had always an appetite
waiting to lead.

You kept to the high road
of canny vision,
let the rest of us
find our own provision.

Ruthless, friends felt,
you might take everything.
Nothing was safe from you.
You did what you wanted.

Yet, safe in your words, your poems,
their humor could hold me.
The wit, the articulate
gathering rhythms,

all made a common sense
of the archaic wonders.
You pulled from nowhere the kingly chair.
You sat alone there.

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