︎







Four Tiny Sutras
For Dimitri Mugianis


    First mind,
    Best mind,
    Allen Ginsberg said


    D.E.
    Do Easy
    William S. Burroughs added


    Let it roll
    was the guidance
    of Jack Kerouac


    and the way
    I remember it goes
    from the Big O,


                in the land of plenty, have
                nothing to do with it
                take the way of


                the lowest, including
                your legs, go
                contrary, go


                sing
                                             —Charles Olson


                                 Amsterdam, July 8, 2007



John Sinclair is a poet, political activist, and counterculture icon, based in Detroit. His jazz poetry is often performed with the Blues Scholars. His publications include It’s All Good: A John Sinclair Reader (2008), We Just Change the Beat: Selected Poems (1988) and This Is Our Music (1965), and the music-in-verse collections Fattening Frogs for Snakes: Delta Sound Suite (2002), and Thelonious: a book of monk (1994).

Read next: Poetry by Khaled Mattawa