You said you were dying
You promised
It’s not that we’re disappointed
But
Okay maybe a little disappointed
Guys like you made it hard to approve
Early enthusiasm for early promise

You retired at the height of your powers
Chronicler of that other Lost Generation
Your generation
Caught between the Greatest and the Boom
Obedient diffident resentful
Adrift in a world mixing certainty and ambiguity
Of Cold War and indefinite Korea

Before hippies and the ecstatic agony of Vietnam
You were there
In spirit
For the civil rights movement
But mostly you nestled with your jazz records
More Brubeck than Coltrane
Never Ornette Coleman

You displayed your liberalism and your piety
Your associate said Jesus was a socialist
But you never praised the open mind
I cannot speak about mind you said
I can only speak about experience
I can only speak about people
The people

Mostly you displayed your exquisite taste
No exquisite is too precious
Your selectivity
The modest images
The obligatory objective correlatives
The carefully curated obscenities
Offered without a hint of the personal