A Beat Poem I wrote at Oxford

Jericho,
gentile
allures
the clicking cliques
reclusive old hipsters
like Fisher and Feinstein
imbibe wine and climb
up black mountains
to a time
of free verse
of happenings
of rhyme within the line.

They’ve come to see Horovitz,
fifty years on
same poems, same glasses,
blowing his own trumpet.
The Beat and beyond
didn’t cultivate critics
but a hothouse
Of Cool.
Amongst the usual flora
I see Chiltern thrift and leafy spurge,
bad clichés regurgitated
without the ideals and meaningful terms

Then
a mellow yellow sun
sets the scene for
a banana skin dream
It seems if
I don’t rhyme punting
with Basil Bunting,
I’ll be fine.
“I’m not gonna do any preamble,”
Under their corrective, collective breath
The modern hipsters mutter,
“that was preamble”
and I stroll off the stage.