open letter to America

Dear America,

With all your peoples and all your resources imagine how great you would be if your country was united?

Sincerely,

Pd Lyons

 

 

 

Love Poem for Richard Brautigan, by od lyons

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 even.

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

from: Still Wishing To be Ravens

Immortal Beloved, by pd lyons

 

 

Immortal Beloved

There is no such thing as Beethoven in Waterbury.
No one sees him buying race forms or cigarettes at Bauby’s corner.
He doesn’t play pin ball at Dazz’s,
chalk a cue at Gentlocks, pan handle a concert crowd at the Palace theatre,
order Blue Ribbon shorts at Backstreet’s or sit in Dresher’s after three sipping cool tall dark drafts.

He’s not protesting the war at Library Park,
selling acid from the Kingsbury hotel,
falling asleep on Christmas eve with a girl named Mary in the chapel of St. Johns church.
Strung out girls don’t get to build snowmen on the green with him
Mattatuck music can’t hire him to move their stock
and the old man at Palace Liquors can’t argue with him any-more.

Hare Krishna’s can’t get him to do their chanting.
Doorways where he stood out of the rain for hours are empty or are gone.
Strangers at the all night bus station, killers on their way to Canada…
women from Louisiana… never meet him any-more.

He doesn’t share a table with down-town Shirley and her father,
foretell the death of walking- stick Louie betrayed by Tiger Teddy,
sell more orange sunshine than Bobby Comfort,
blow a joint with the New Riders of the Purple Sage,
love a reincarnated baton twirling beauty queen from North Carolina,
let catholic school girls follow him home – cry when he had to let them go.
He doesn’t clamour along the roof tops with a friend named Bird, who never got to California, find free warmth in the library or in the stairwells of the Brown building or for a quarter a slice get to sit behind the pizza ovens at Dom’n Nicks.
And no one sees him sitting on the fire escape drinking Roma California Port with Whitey and Charlie Brown –
There’s no such thing as Beethoven in Waterbury any-more.

On the corner of Lewis and West Main Beethoven’s lover stands
Eyeing several school girls waiting for their bus across the street.
She watches and waits – nothing happens for her in this town any-more.
Yet she dyes her hair red for him, still refuses to ever ride a bus
And her pale lips still struggle with those Lucky Strikes
Just like always in his dreams

 

for Waterbury Connecticut

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

basically a homage to my high school days long long ago in the dream time. no names have been changed all is true and yeah there was this guy who looked just like Beethoven. would often see him making great strides across the green sometimes alone sometimes in company of a woman, always intent on some inner quandary – or so it seemed. this would have originally been started in 1973 and edited and messed with continually since then. in fact a few minor editings occurring  now…. there.

New Riders At The Palace/sunset show

from:salamander yellow pad

 

http://salamanderyellow.blogspot.co.uk/

New Riders At The Palace/sunset show

 

New Riders at the Palace. Four dollars fifty cents; Sunset show. Hanging on East Main hour n a half to go. Around the corner by the Shamrock bar, light a joint and walk about. Pass by two guys from California. Walk together for a while passing the joint between us. They go into the Palace Hotel. I stand in line for the doors to open. Hare Krishnas make the rounds up and down the line say hare Krishna, hare Krishna and they give you a cookie or something sweet, sometimes give you a book or a booklet cool pictures to bring home and paste up on the wall trippy coloured god-head with many many many blue tinged girls.Turns out the guys from California were in the band one was the drummer and the other played steel or pedal or something i cant remember now cause its over forty years gone by. Used to tell people it was Garcia but i don’t know, i mean i didn’t know who they were then so how could i have ever said for sure at any point?