• Howl came to me
    in the hard back alley
    yelling at the needles
    spiting the tourniquet
    He asked me for an angry fix
    I gave him the dollar menu.

    Howl came to me
    shrouded in a faustaus cloak
    chanting hymns on the
    prayer beads of a
    vacant mind
    that had only dreamed of moonships.
    I told him to get off my lawn.
    Hippie.

    Howl came to me
    and cut butterflies from his eyelids
    stretched them over the landscape
    that only reached as far as the culdasac
    so wide-eyed hipsters
    with raccoon eyed lisssps
    could hide under this red rock.
    Howl hurled crowbirds at mockingbars
    but I did not abandon him
    for handing out needles
    to AIDS patients.

    Oh great wizard Howl!
    Let down your hair
    so that I may hold it back
    as you crouch over the toilet
    spouting angels from the ear plugs in your throat.
    Close your eyes and count to a googlepl--
    ease in which you cocoon yourself in the Ganga
    is unnerving to the rest of us.

    Great wizard Howl!
    Rejoin the fisher king under the mischievous thunderbolt
    Coupez votre corps en deux
    Coupez votre membres too
    where the knives were first sstuck in the cutting board.
    Your dry bones, no one dares to touch
    for fear of your meat dress.
    Keep looking for Zarathustra under chasm of your cigarette burns.
    Fall on the floor in the clamor of bees hidden in your chime shells.
    Janus is tired of your spastic foam flecks.

    Howl.
    You crouch down with corpses
    and whisper music on those strings.
    You walk the tight rope of my dreams upside
    down the castle's shifting wall.
    You sink with submarine dreams of
    Saturday night lives
    and consume all in thy fearful frame.

    You offer salvation in the form of free samples.
    Your beard shakes free of stardust.
    The universe was not designed to contain
    A polka-dotted Pluto.
    There’s tiny souls at stake here, Howl,
    Surely you can hang up your tear-stained cape.

    I keep telling you your S is backwards,
    Maybe it’s because you used spray on tan to
    Stomp on jazz.
    And lord knows I stomped with you
    To stop the lipless jellyfish from
    Zapzapzapping your door down
    When you were
    carving your obscene odes
    into the walls.

    Stop shuffling through the glittermud, Howl.
    That’s where we wrote a love song
    In the form of half-eaten candy bars.
    That’s where Johnny and Billy
    Decided to forget the flakes of fire.
    That’s where gorgeous buried her baby sister,
    Along with our scratch and dent dreams.

    Come back over here,
    And finish your ice cream.