to all my dead poets

by Zvi Baranoff

I pour off part of my first cup of coffee

a tribute to all my dead poets

published and unpublished

the poets that died too young

rhythms suspended

the poets that left by accident

or on purpose

or as collateral damage

the poets that went out in a blaze of glory

or maybe just a blaze

who lived and died like rock stars if only in their own minds

and the ones that quietly slipped away

sometimes of old age

sometimes

to the poets working in factories or mines or warehouses or as migrant farmworkers or in offices sometimes looking managerial or at schools appearing to be academics or janitors or as gas station attendants or panhandlers or newspaper vendors or bookstore clerks

poets that don't have the time to write down the words and are too tired to remember them later on yet still there

beating within the industrial rhythms

in their heads in their bodies

in their waking and in their sleep

the unwritten poetry

the poets on the streets listening to the sound of the city

the poets in the forest or on the mountain

or in the checkout line at the grocery market

counting the change watching the kids

who don't know that they are poets or maybe they do

I pour off the first shot of whiskey from the bottle

to all my dead poets

and drink a toast to the living