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Broadway for Paul

Page 4

by Vincent Katz


  11/3/17

  Finally, it feels like autumn.

  11/4/17

  I’m the guy who starts the day.

  11/7/17

  Laughter outside, in the cold. Bright sunlight, crisp shadows, reflections. Two women in bright-colored garb, possibly to a standard required by religion or custom. A woman bikes up the avenue with her little dog in her bike basket. I like this cold light.

  11/17/17

  It all has a meaning. But I’m trying not to get too obsessed by the meaning.

  I was thinking about ego, and how little that has availed one. And how easy it is, really, not to be run by ego if one wishes. I realized that my early life had been a flight from meaninglessness. I was terrified of people for whom the universe seemed a shut, fully understandable, and harshly limited condition. And I went toward those who felt the opposite, who felt unburdened.

  It’s 11:18 on 11/18. For such a long time. Oh, now it’s ended.

  11/18/17

  A tug pushes a barge slowly into the sunlight. A building is being demolished, and many more are being built. Earlier the light looked British, but now it’s back to winter New York.

  11/22/17

  It’s a beautiful day. Look at the light out there.

  11/27/17

  2

  THE CLIFF

  The figures exhaling

  Verdure was companion

  Was complaining

  To one was sitting

  In front of building

  The stench of hatred

  Milled and uttered

  Schoolchildren hand

  In hand attempting

  To begin life again

  Everything else

  Does not go by

  Seamlessly, pond

  And playground,

  Intimation, sexiness

  FOUR NOTES

  i.

  Abacus of wonder,

  Delighted hand,

  Freighted desire,

  Time softening.

  ii.

  Light squares,

  Shadow crosses,

  Shadow screens,

  Evanescence.

  iii.

  Softening square,

  Light energy,

  Still push into,

  Water surface.

  iv.

  Voices from across,

  And far, tension

  Nothing, in flow,

  Nature commands.

  FAMILY

  She chose her family,

  Relinquished inconsistency.

  Seems to have abandoned

  Abandon, but saved harmony.

  A garden existence.

  Rigor in place of grace.

  Grace instead of servitude,

  She was allowed to be.

  SMOKE

  You smell smoke.

  But don’t see it.

  A still plane

  Extending distance.

  Quiet, almost

  Silent. Light

  Shifts to right.

  Chair shifts.

  There is day’s

  Calm, to edge.

  Today’s battles

  Allayed. Birds

  Still at song.

  Plectrum rests

  In weakening

  Light.

  SITTING

  Cricket carpet,

  Pecker knock.

  Manna float,

  Bird taunt.

  Cicada chirr,

  Tall silence.

  FOUR WOMEN

  i.

  Four, that I could remember,

  Here, in this place

  I am again. Winter?

  Summer. And the music.

  ii.

  The same music from before.

  But lilted, shifted a little,

  To where others could bend,

  Pretend they listened.

  iii.

  Softly, those windows.

  They protect, and defending,

  Bleed to shock witness,

  Offending needed wit.

  iv.

  Their ability to be soft,

  That was something magic,

  And they grew among others,

  That is sure, continued.

  SIX FIGURES, FIRE

  Six figures, boat

  Approaches city

  Beach, marina

  Causeway enclosed

  Earlier figures

  Boated now sublime

  Material, machine

  Highway flux

  Lakeshore, drives

  Continuous shadowed

  Building backs

  Windows scale

  YELLOW TOWEL

  Her body sat on it

  A whole reflection

  Ward consistency

  Elevate magnetic

  Spresidual

  Her body sat on it

  Spry integument

  Shatter stiff farm

  A whim at ease

  ENCOUNTER

  for Oliver

  Yesterday, as we walked from the town,

  And the light faded from the sky,

  I thought, How striking

  The dark shapes of buoys and barks

  In front of the still bay, and land opposite

  And I thought, Poetry cannot suffice

  For this, only painting could evince

  This light, and evincing, might

  Reach an equivalent sense of calm

  Or overview, photography could not

  Then my son said, Don’t under-

  Estimate the power of the word,

  And I thought, Perhaps? This morn,

  Again I see the sea, land opposite,

  Boats and air and clouds, and wonder

  CALLIGRAPHY AT THE BEACH

  Tonight, the same view,

  But different, the light

  Darker, different water

  Has flowed, boats come,

  Gone, shapes insistent,

  Many more people now,

  Hour of promenade,

  Music, darkness, walking

  Not much flirting, just

  A way of life involving

  Water, boats out there,

  Food offering, perfume

  LOOKING AT THE SEA

  I have today and tomorrow,

  I hear amplified voices,

  The sun shines, the arbor

  Shades, and people talk.

  Actors write, writers act,

  It can be the same or not,

  And criticism can be praise,

  But love can only be love.

  Mysticism is obfuscation,

  She explains to anyone,

  The sea is salty, you taste

  Your mouth and hurt feet.

  Now it is the sunset they

  Have come to see. Islands

  Lying on the horizon.

  We have today and tomorrow.

  ARABESQUE

  The table still holds breakfast,

  Conversation no problem, coffee

  Still hot, table is the place

  Family’s constructed, regardless

  One needn’t arrive at a point

  Simply, light blue sky, fronds

  Waving and the public space

  People construe edges of />
  BEGINNING OF THE PICNIC

  Let’s see if I can write some poetry now

  It doesn’t look like it, sitting on the veranda

  Above a quiet street, a Tuesday at

  Year’s beginning, warm, sunlight on leaves

  Rainfall earlier cleared out but clouds

  Returned, yet all is lush and breezes

  Keep air moving in and out, below

  Two men walk past, conversing

  A garage door slides open, a car backs out,

  Birds cackle nearby, dogs farther off

  Resound, the car returns, the door slides,

  The car slips in, afternoon lingers

  FIVE NOTES

  Rain pours down on brightly colored homes

  Solar panels chimneys with attached ladders

  Now rain has stopped sky still heavily clouded

  Birds chirp outside inside voices from other rooms

  And now it is silent, dark outside but the shades

  Are drawn and nothing can be seen except what is within

  Sky full of heavy clouds breast full of expectation

  Nothing in the air but conversation and a bird

  Rain pours and pours, all day now, and our day

  Is an extra one, stasis of leaves and buildings

  CONVERSATION BY THE SEA

  What do you feel makes life okay?

  You are constantly feeling older.

  The way people speak is changing.

  You no longer know what they want.

  What do you mean by that word

  Respect? I mean knowing my life

  Has been lived for a purpose.

  Or purposes. I wake up and think,

  All is gone. But then the clarity

  Of morning reveals it is not.

  Something is here more valuable

  Than diamonds, than fame.

  What is that something? Do you see

  Yourself in other places? I am

  Trying not to imagine other places,

  But rather to inhabit the place

  I actually inhabit. If I am able

  To transfer comfort to others, able

  To let those younger take the reins,

  Then, perhaps, I can live respected.

  MORNING

  for Paul

  In this light I can be the city again

  In this sacred precinct at city’s heart

  I am known and unknown

  My parents brought me here

  The light on that flat prow betides

  Warmer days, people flooding

  As now, this coldest day, they flow

  People as shields present themselves

  What are those strange, antiquated figures

  Look down on us, confused?

  Has their ability shifted?

  Café tables in freezing light

  EVENING, CLOUDS, FIRE

  It’s too cold and there is not enough light

  WOMAN IN GREEN

  I can feel another poem

  And not enough reason

  Just in the faces granite

  Bases of cold interaction

  My dead buddy’d object:

  Go for ordinary times

  In rhythms, rhymes

  But he was alone indoors

  What do you make of it all?

  Some short, some tall

  Some here, some gone

  Music across the shore

  MOON AND FIRE

  I don’t want to finish this book

  Maybe, if I don’t, his life

  Won’t end, thinking magically

  To avert the ending

  What is the work and what

  The life, where may the twain

  Meet, where divide?

  People are asking that again

  3

  LIGHTS

  Lights across, winter

  Getting ready for something

  Evening, sky still light in west

  Darkening in east while

  Reddish coils gather, spread,

  In south, now west vermilion

  Streaks across river

  Here water too marina

  Modern building brighter

  As sky gathers fullness

  Sky changing rhythms

  Flags, planes, and birds

  HOTEL EMPIRE

  The letters in neon burn

  Into night’s walking century

  People with thoughts, desire

  Walking dogs or jogging

  Heading home via sidewalk

  Costumes in window, self

  In head transposed idea

  Of look, of movie image

  This my city, these perfumes

  These plazas, these architectures

  These fountains, these babies

  These dogs, this going home

  ALONE

  They need crowds around them

  I like to walk

  And see others, in twos, groups, or single

  All face the river at end of day

  Boats and lights, skates,

  Bikes go flying past

  Two people understanding

  Or people not understanding

  City’s changing, building up

  Music’s changing, people too

  They don’t talk or think the same

  But there’s still desire and glee

  THE MAN WHO LEFT

  in memory of my friend Morgan

  He made six posts to my Facebook in the last month

  I didn’t respond because I don’t respond to Facebook

  But I saw his posts: two marked the passing of artists, Z’EV and Donald Hall

  The most recent one, from about three weeks ago, recounted hearing Hall read

  In Wisconsin “in the earliest 70s” and his (Morgan’s) writing a poem about him (Hall)

  “about his taking a stall next to mine in the bathroom and just letting his drawers fall to the floor and the noises he made”

  And lunch and snippets of poems in a drawer

  Morgan didn’t graduate high school, but after spending four years, as he put it,

  “on the road or off the road (as in off-road),” he was accepted at University

  of Chicago, where we met as freshmen in the fall of 1978

  I can’t remember what drew me to his garret at the top floor of Vincent House

  Maybe a mutual friend told me to seek him out, maybe we had spoken in the dining hall,

  He was lying on his bed and had a healthy dark-brown goatee matching his long, dark hair

  He sat up when he saw me and smiled, a smile that all who knew him will easily recall

  I can’t quite believe I am writing these words about Morgan

  We were always friends in the present tense, even when continents apart

  He may have been reading a book of poetry, maybe Apollinaire, whom he often quoted

  He asked me who I liked, and I mentioned Ted Berrigan

  “I love Ted Berrigan!” he replied, laughing, and on that note, our friendship was born

  Morgan said that we should go see D. J. R. Bruckner, a classicist and Rhodes Scholar who had known Tolkien and went on to become a literary critic for The New York Times

  We were ostensibly going to see him for his signature as faculty advisor for the poetry group we wanted to start, but the real reason was to be in his pr
esence and engage in the age-old practice of literary chitchat

  Later, I was able to bring Ted and his partner in crime, Ron Padgett, to U of C to read

  Morgan was there, never shy, he always liked to meet his heroes and went up to

  Ted and asked him to sign a book (possibly Red Wagon, published by The Yellow Press in 1976)

  Ted wrote, to the young man he’d just met, “To Morgan, who taught me everything I know”

  Morgan was majoring in psychology, and one of his psych buddies, Joe Grossman, was also a V House resident

  They bonded in wildness and pushed each other to try every possible extreme

  Morgan started to get into psychedelics and got Joe to join him on trips

  Joe started dressing differently, customizing T-shirts, wearing dark makeup under his eyes

  Morgan looked pretty much the same as usual, he always had a grin, devilish but friendly, whether high or not

  But Morgan ended up in the emergency room a couple of times

  He’d just go too far out and maybe Joe wasn’t with him

  The first time, he was kicked out of the UC housing system

  The second time, he was either expelled or asked to take a leave of absence

  When John and Yoko released Double Fantasy on November 17, 1980, there was a long article and interview in the Times

  Morgan mailed me the article

  I was so happy to get it and read it and so shocked by what was soon to occur

  I next saw Morgan in my senior year

  He’d migrated to University of Wisconsin at Madison, where he was studying film

  I’d moved to an apartment near the lakeshore with two guys from my band and another friend

  Allen Ginsberg and Peter Orlovsky had reached out and we organized a reading for them at the law school

  Before the reading, Allen walked through the audience, giving out our address

 

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