“I am no poet” by Duke Gatsos

my beard is improper,
Allah laughs at me.
I can grow chinny rabble
but not here
around the lips
where speech spills
rather than sticks
in hairy locks.

I am no Chuck Clenney,
no Jim Lally
who whimsy from a whisker
wistful words wildly whisper
a call to commune
with ancestors Whitmanlike,
thoroughly Thoreau.

-Duke Gatsos

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