Wystan And Walt Poem by Lewis Bosworth

I love the work you boys do.
I have a sense of bonding through you.
You speak to me in verse,
and I try to reply.
Tell me what kind of spirit
I should have, not to mimic you;
that would be a travesty.
I covet your words.
I want you to be my boy friends.

Give me signs; but not stop-signs.
Signals, traffic signals, all green.
I want touchstones so the words
I write will catch up with yours.
I breathe rapidly as my
words catch up slowly.
I want to bond and touch.
I want you to stop my clock and be my captain
and help me to lie down in leaves of grass.

Frost, Rimbaud, Pessoa, Eliot, Sandburg,
Angelou, Garcia Lorca, Wilbur, Levertov
– all are to be admired as they give us
glimpses of their lives and languages.
They cause us to think, to read more of their work.

Your words touch me, boys,
and I need to be touched;
I need to be embraced by your words,
of which I can’t get enough.
Thank you, Messrs Auden & Whitman!