A Beat poet
cooped up like a parakeet
in a New England winter
tired of TV screens
reruns of faded old films
clouded over
his bloodshot eyes
wanting to be a runaway
or a Rimbaud
here in Vermont
with a red French wine
and French croissant
takes out his sax
to play riffs
along the Green Mountains
yet afraid to be
terrorized from a water bed
abandoned from home
and his made up exercise
on the trampoline
to take up the alto clarinet,
a lost friend from the band
shows jazz’s balancing act
in his disturbed universe,
as my kid brother
throws a football against
a city graffiti wall
found from the Patriots
locker room,
telling him a Chinese proverb,
“Tension is who you think
you should be, relaxation
is who you are.”