"Atta," Angelo Luna's Birthday Poem for his Father

 Angelo & Christopher Luna, Father's Day 2020

Atta

by Angelo Luna

Not a beat poet

but loves the beat, certainly

Smooth jazz

rapid rhythms

the claws that sink in 

when an Invader 

grabs you by the short and curlies 

and tells you to 

fucking 

Dance

Not a a beat poet, no

but described by Ginsberg 

decades before his existence nonetheless

First thought, best thought

Uninhibited

Uncontrolled

a radioactive substance in writing

Internal Radiation Therapy

words healing the country 

from the inside out

While the world burns in 

Trump’s America

Bolsonaro’s Brazil

God’s Earth

he writes his truth, and fights fire 

by sucking the oxygen out of the room

A man who’s quantifiable praise for his ancestors 

quiets crowds 

when it’s spoken out loud

No more fire

There aren’t enough of him

Not quite zen

but buddhist in soul and practice

Does what’s being said need to be said? 

Why are you saying it? 

Does it help anyone? 

They may be mantras to some

but it’s better thought of as a scientific method

dissect every interaction

future and past

and see which parts were necessary

Make yourself the best you can be

I write inhibited

Clinical

still coming into my own and learning from my betters

He teaches as a delimiter

not a time bomb

Not a beat poet, definitively, 

but heavily influenced

and proud of it. 

Surrealist

Grounded

visionary works 

clutter file cabinets, real and digital. 

Ginsberg watches him from another life

passing by on the street every chance he gets

without knowing it

I like to think that if reincarnation is 

the way things go 

that good ol’ Allen 

is younger than my father

Maybe he’s a student

a fellow teacher

a preteen he makes a collage for.

Maybe he’s me, though I doubt it

I have other elders to follow

Stoic principles prepare us for loss

and I’ll spend my time in study preparing for his, most

Regardless of the sum of my works

or the product of his

I don’t know what real life will do when he’s gone. 

A crack in an invisible wall

that only suffers when a truly great person leaves

There’s only so many it can take

I often wonder if his 

will be the last

He betters himself

works with his son to live longer

even though it hurts 

and sometimes isn’t as entertaining as others

He doesn’t want to see that wall crack either

he wants to surpass legacies

become one of those elders

No, that’s incorrect. Forgive my candidness, 

but that’s what 

I 

Want

He would be happy leaving a mark on a closed

small circle

I want to see his name in essays 

50 years from now

Either way

I’ll be proud. 

He deserves it.

    Allen Ginsberg and Christopher Luna in 1994