I bought a poster
of Shelley,
at Keats's old house
in Rome,
and brought it home,
wrinkle free!
then i thought,
what about the greenest
leaf I plucked from his grave,
at the protestant cemetery
near Pyramid,
which I pressed
between the pages of a book,
carefuly,
I should have taken
one from Percy's too,
but death was wounding
me so beautifully,
and I was overcome,
when I envisaged Gregory Corso's
headstone with poem,
whom I did glimpse
and hear in real life,
at a reading in Vancouver
in 89, with Allen Ginsberg,
poetry is life and death,
and so much memory - Helen!
II
Graeme's going to frame
it for me,
'I think if you put the leaf
in cling film,
shouldn't stain or anything...',
I put it in my notebook
carried it through work,
delivered packages & letters,
the leafy green sheen
of veins, imaginary bleeding
in my red pocket,
there'll have to be some
kind of praise, more Endymion,
I want to eat poetry again,
somehow?
at first I thought I'd lost it!
the leaf the leaf,
Graeme, took it, as if it was
a butterfly, resounding
on the end of his fingers,
'I'll put it in the safe! ',
and he locked it too,
I almost chuckled....
frame should be ready to tomorrow!
This poem has not been translated into any other language yet.
I would like to translate this poem