Be Brave
We are stuck in this story
of America,
these Whitman dreams,
Guthrie songs
and bright Ginsberg rants,
with even the land itself
teary-eyed, disillusioned,
forever in love,
knocked down
by Kerouacian gifts
of western horizons
and beautiful, unknown women
waiting in lost cafes,
flattened by Bukowski’s tender heart
bleeding beneath the drunken roar.
What is left? What epic has the soul left burning?
Get it down. Get everything down.
Chances remain,
but they must be taken
or lost.
America, like you, is here for the dance.
Her story will never be fully told.
by Jeff Weddle
from Poetry Feast