Bill Lawlor

A Local Election

is announced by signs
on lawns

and depends almost completely
on doorstep handshakes

so when the sheriff
came to my door

to ask for my vote
I shook his hand

I wasn't going to let him know
that up on my bookshelf

was William Seward Borroughs
wasn't going to let him know

that Herbert Huncke could feel the heat
and was guilty of everything

wasn't going to let him know
that I was thinking of Bill Cannastra

his head sticking out a subway window
of Lucien Carr stabbing David Kammerer

of Sal Dean and Marylou
driving nude across Texas

of Allen Ginsberg hollow eyed and high
floating across the tops of cities contemplating jazz

yes I shook the sheriff's hand
yes I told him
he could count on me

*The poem is published in Dave Engel and Justin Isherwood, eds., Ring Them Bells (Friendship, Wisconsin: New Past Press, 2000).

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