W.S.B.

He occupied a ramshackle place

on the east side of town

with an entourage of cats, an arsenal of guns,

revolving celebrity guests.

Rumor circulated 'round the English Department

that he frequented The Bottleneck bar.

One November afternoon, I spotted him there,

crouched alone in a corner, pressed herringbone suit,

hickory-sword cane tap-tap-tapping to the music.

Our bartender whispered that he took tequila,

so I purchased two shots and approached.

"Pardon me, Mr. Burroughs.

I am just a B-I-G admirer

of your writing ...

May I offer you a tequila, Sir?"

"Why, certainly, young man."

We tossed back our shots.

I retrieved the glasses, and he eyeballed me

with his steely, cobalt eyes.

I fell into a trance waiting for him to blink:

These are the eyes that starred down

the barrel of a revolver

pointed at his wife's cranium (pow!),

eyes that peered unflinchingly

into a drug-crazed abyss,

eyes that crawled like an insect over

countless young male bodies.

The band lurched into a new song

and a curiosity sparked in my groin,

rocketed up my spine and burst into a dull haze

that rendered me speechless:

Is this old queen expecting a come-on?!

I'd have liked to impress the Godfather of the Beats

with tales of imagined literary exploits,

or regale him with a deliciously irreverent anecdote,

at least praise his influence on a moral code

skeptical of monotonous conformity.

Instead, I stood before the man an imbecile,

barely mustering an oafish smile,

which he met—bless him—with a kindly grin

that pierced my anxious fever.

I retreated to the bar.

"How did it go?" the bartender asked.

"Oh, brilliant ... Yeah ...

One for the memoires."

And some say it was William Burroughs,

not Thomas Lambert,

who brought the literary bona fides

to Lawrence, Kansas.