The Silent Treatment
Sitting around
Ferlinghetti’s
apartment
over his
print shop
on upper Green
more than
40 years ago
after Bukowski’s
first
City Lights
reading,
with Ferlinghetti
Bukowski
Rip Torn &
a host of
minions,
someone said
Bukowski
you’re the
only one
who’s
done it &
I said
no one’s
done it
or we
wouldn’t
still be
trying to
do it &
Ferlinghetti said
the Beats
did it.
The Beats?
I said.
Kerouac?
Ginsberg?
Ferlinghetti?
Ah, but then
you’re Ferlinghetti.
The room
got very
quiet &
Bukowski
smiled
down into
his beer
cradled on
his gut.
“Now you’ve
done it
Bennett,”
he said,
& Ferlinghetti
stared at
me with
ice blue
eyes
that said
we’re
going to
silence you.
Which they
never did.
