I saw him in San Francisco at the Purple OnionWhen I was still at Stanford, a Teaching AssistantGetting the “Ode to a Nightingale” by heart.Out of prison on bail, soon he would die.One of the charges against him was saying “shmuck.”He reminded me of my teacher Irving Howe:The impatience of an improvising spiritHurtling beyond a footnote or a punch lineLike a light-wingëd dryad in the trees.The comic with months to live was only 40.I thought he talked too much about his trials—Forgive me please, I was barely 24.The cover charge, on my tiny fellowship,A tender gesture menaced by hornets and grackles.“Is money all you people think about?”Being a lizard I’m not sure what to say.John Keats in a letter says that now he’s ready“To cheat as well as any literary Jew”—One more example, ho hum, how could it matterTo me as a secret reptile from outer spaceCharmed by your human poetry and music?Howe happened to be at Stanford that one year.My poetry teacher Yvor Winters deploredThe “awful mess” of Keats’s mind. I didGet him to concede the “Ode” was beautiful.He seemed surprised and happy when I told himHowe had assigned his essay on Henry James.“Alright, it’s true! We killed him. What a bad scene,It was us, my family did it, we found a note IKilled Jesus in the basement, signed Cousin Morty.”I’m grateful to Lenny Bruce for saying that.I pardon Keats for being a shmuck— the wordA homey metaphor meaning a bangle, a gem,Diminutive for a child is schmeckel, a spokenPrecious ornament weighed and appreciatedIn the jazzy sacred scales of appropriation.