Love Poem for R.B.
Today I heard on the radio that Richard Brautigan
Killed himself last fall.
Then some girl who was 17 in 1970 read his Love Poem.
She said that her then lover was a DJ on a college
Station and had dedicated a recording of the poem
To her, over the air, before he disappeared in a
Californian direction.
Anyway, I don’t know where I was.
Maybe I was washing clothes or asleep.
Maybe I was with Jenny or Eva or somebody.
I could a been drunk, or depressed
As if by some sort of intuition.
All I really know is that I’ll never know where I was
When he did it.
I wonder how he did it.
Maybe I should go down to the library look him
Up on the newspaper micro-film file?
Most likely I won’t though, the library is closed now
And I’m not sure I care that much anyway.
Besides it’s one of those details I’m sure will
Accidentally find its way to me.
It kinda pisses me off that he did it, I mean he
Wrote that Watermelon Sugar book, I read it years ago
When Mary gave it to me and I, 15 in 1970.
Watermelon Sugar and Mary my first lover go good together.
I don’t know about this suicide stuff though.
But maybe it’s nice not having to wake up alone with yourself
When you just don’t want to any more.
6/6/85
the sea made her way
sneaking up river
daring an overland short cut
crossed the lake
a hitched ride over the high land
where the old man sat
back against white stucco
smoking a Cuban cigar
right away she began;
whispered
rolling waves
sounds of silver birds
stars like diamonds
pure black
as if travelling among them there would never be another horizon
behind his eyes the old man smiled
o ribbons of smoke
barely audible ahh
at which she paused
looked
saw
him as he now was
and knew all she could do was to return from whence she came
never to kiss his pale grey eyes again
She Would
turn the armadillo
tickle his stomach with her tongue
black beetle tears swell
June bugs high heel snaps
crickets rip trying on new clothes
caterpillars hum dull dreams of a sex life
through irises and junipers
these she breaths
on her toes
sneakers let the ballet
peer out with wonder
along these New Haven streets
amid this morning
slipping into the haze
who is it
whispered water lily secrets
when your mornings got too heavy?
leaving the Stars behind
called you flower by moonlight
called you cypress by spring
watched you from the evening change
grey misty morning across the spider down day
the old man I have sat with
the old man I have sat with
anarchist veteran
wars wound down across an age of cigarettes
jokes spun in and out upon the swirl of pastis and water
croissants and coffee through to charcuterie
against the warm summer stones of Montesquieu
old man and me, our laughter.
to not ever be forgotten,
our fear.
Mogambo
in the back yards of the moon
mountains ever silk with smoke
a cigarette a champagne
a dress for dinner
as if we would ever
be back
the only true things
ghosts unable to sleep
unable to abide this weight of age and flesh
princesses and big cats
a woman afraid of her own jungle
hunter of the caged
a man afraid of mortality
how could our hungers meet?
how could our true nature reveal,
those ghosts we fear so much
are all the spirit we could have been.
all we traded away so cheap.
in the obligations of our evenings
in the entitlement of our heritage
sweat black the spear singers
sweat black the towel holders
as if the pale god held sway
without the guns of our own steel,
without the cripple nature of our own fears
we could never make our way a way
Bigger Than the Sky If a Star Was Your Eye
Without sadness there can be no kindness.
Depression while it may be unkind
Is not a kind of sadness.
Someday children learn:
Daddies don’t know everything
Daddies aren’t always there
Daddies cannot protect in an omnipotent way
And on top of that neither can mommy.
Not even if we are believed to be gods.
I have lived in houses of the dead.
Those who died before my age
Those who lived to be a hundred a hundred years ago.
Someday these stairs I sweep will still be here
And I will not be anywhere.
Someday all those I ever knew and who knew me,
No matter how intimately; will be no more.
Not even forgotten because there will be none
Whoever even knew them or us or me.
My daughter age 7 asks “What happens when you die daddy?”
“What really happens after you die dad?”
Am I afraid of death?
Afraid of not being me anymore?
Am I afraid of life?
Afraid of not knowing answers
Growing old?
Forgetting?
My daughter loves the sea
we don’t live near it
sometimes get to visit
dancing in and out the surf
Up and down the Dogs Bay regardless of the weather.
My son now in his thirties
hardly ever leaves his house
the one he bought from my father’s estate
The house me and the siblings grew up in
Some I argued with, so he could live there
Like his grandpa said.
And maybe it’s not so bad to forget?
be free of history
be new
make space for right now
stop so much looking back.
and maybe it can be that way with death?
not so bad,
letting go of all this me?
making space for something new?
But I’ve a strong ego
Tuff as nails
A Buddha’s nightmare
Veteran of all kinds of wars.
Maybe that’s the equation:
stronger the ego – stronger the fear?
I am not the god of my children
too old to fool them with immortality
Anyway, they’re too smart to not perceive
My purely human heart.
Love is not an answer but a response.
A response to all those unanswerable questions.
Not knowing anything
I love.
The more answers I don’t have?
The more I feel my own true love.
So, I tell her –
I don’t know what really happens when we die
But I do know how much I love you ~
20 Jan 09
