Near the end of LIFE

from this week in September, 1972  (I was 27)

            Near the end of LIFE

I’m flipping through the pages of LIFE

listening to a recording of Woody Guthrie

and wondering at the circumstantial evidence

that he fathered Bob Dylan.

Bobby was born at the age of twenty-one

(a conception right out of the Old Testament)

That leaves Woody in one place only

(amazing the way the metaphor leads one away…)

Anyway, I’m flipping the pages pf LIFE

must have been back in September of ’72,

maybe October, there is a P.O.W.

and his liberated wife.

It’s the kind of article I can’t read

I already believe everything I’ve ever heard

about the War.  The War.

The concept is incredible, the War,

There are other things in it too,

a European starlet and great ads.

It all sells to the great camping American

and it’s the best satirical review around.