more random acts of poetry
this is one of the highlights of my writing life.
so i am at City Lights, the bookstore in North Beach made famous in the 50s as a fave hangout of the Beats - Kerouac, Ginsberg, all of those crazies. its an amazing bookstore, and i was perusing the European Lit section when i noticed, out of my eye, a man standing over by the literary journals. she picks up a copy of the most recent edition of Washington Square, the literary journal from N.Y.U. this intrigues me immediately. he is thumbing thru the pages and i find myself walking in her direction. i can see, over his left shoulder, that she is a reading a poem.
my poem.
“excuse me for interrupting,” i say to him, waiting until he has finished and flipped the page, “just out of curiosity, what did you think of that poem?”
“what? the one i was just reading?” he says, somewhat shocked at me approaching him. “it was nice. i liked it. why? do you know the author?”
“i am the author,” i said.
he bought the copy of the journal and asked me to autograph it. his name was Paul.
this poem is about my grandfather, whom i never knew.
Breaking Down the Bridge
for George Morgan (died 1971)
Yours is a lost entry: never was your name
a subject of dinner conversation, no jaundiced
photographs perched upon bookshelves
or the hearth. My one true point of
reference: an abridged quotation
from your second son. When I asked
of you, he paused to edit and strategize,
portraying you as a man content
rocking in a rocking chair, passing
the hours with a volume of Plato.
We were driving that day, perusing
valleys of butternuts and zealous fog,
incomparable landscapes inhabited
by the sorriest of folk. Your homelands.
After decades of founding and refounding
your dreams - Chicago and Detroit,
Bay City and Watertown - you built
an empire here, a hotel and stone
castle on the bank of a small pond,
and you fancied the horses, spending
your every last moment at the Downs,
even as misdirected trotters carried
your dowry and your ægis back
to the stables. I inherited your features
and your luck at the races (I hit the Daily
Double and it paid $4.80). I’m saddled
with the bitterness of your two youngest
sons, anchored in the mud while
the eldest - my father - cut himself
loose. I never even knew you, yet
I find myself inexorably stuck with you,
the bridge between us a ludicrous
wrought iron bridge which hovers
atop a dry riverbed, the river long since
having altered its course. Place a hammer
in my grasp and I would hammer free
the rivets and bolts, reducing that bridge
to an elegant heap of rubble, waiting
for summer rains to overflow the gulch
and carry the remains to the sea.
so i am at City Lights, the bookstore in North Beach made famous in the 50s as a fave hangout of the Beats - Kerouac, Ginsberg, all of those crazies. its an amazing bookstore, and i was perusing the European Lit section when i noticed, out of my eye, a man standing over by the literary journals. she picks up a copy of the most recent edition of Washington Square, the literary journal from N.Y.U. this intrigues me immediately. he is thumbing thru the pages and i find myself walking in her direction. i can see, over his left shoulder, that she is a reading a poem.
my poem.
“excuse me for interrupting,” i say to him, waiting until he has finished and flipped the page, “just out of curiosity, what did you think of that poem?”
“what? the one i was just reading?” he says, somewhat shocked at me approaching him. “it was nice. i liked it. why? do you know the author?”
“i am the author,” i said.
he bought the copy of the journal and asked me to autograph it. his name was Paul.
this poem is about my grandfather, whom i never knew.
Breaking Down the Bridge
for George Morgan (died 1971)
Yours is a lost entry: never was your name
a subject of dinner conversation, no jaundiced
photographs perched upon bookshelves
or the hearth. My one true point of
reference: an abridged quotation
from your second son. When I asked
of you, he paused to edit and strategize,
portraying you as a man content
rocking in a rocking chair, passing
the hours with a volume of Plato.
We were driving that day, perusing
valleys of butternuts and zealous fog,
incomparable landscapes inhabited
by the sorriest of folk. Your homelands.
After decades of founding and refounding
your dreams - Chicago and Detroit,
Bay City and Watertown - you built
an empire here, a hotel and stone
castle on the bank of a small pond,
and you fancied the horses, spending
your every last moment at the Downs,
even as misdirected trotters carried
your dowry and your ægis back
to the stables. I inherited your features
and your luck at the races (I hit the Daily
Double and it paid $4.80). I’m saddled
with the bitterness of your two youngest
sons, anchored in the mud while
the eldest - my father - cut himself
loose. I never even knew you, yet
I find myself inexorably stuck with you,
the bridge between us a ludicrous
wrought iron bridge which hovers
atop a dry riverbed, the river long since
having altered its course. Place a hammer
in my grasp and I would hammer free
the rivets and bolts, reducing that bridge
to an elegant heap of rubble, waiting
for summer rains to overflow the gulch
and carry the remains to the sea.