I went into my apartment, poured a drink and sat at the desk.
I took the revolver out of the drawer and felt its weight in my
hands. There’s always a way out, but there’s also always
karma: even in eternity there’s no free lunch.
I thought of Natricia…what an odd name…and what a dumb
question: “what’s your favorite color?’…it could only have
been a coincidence that that explosion had happened when
it did….or, was it?
Yeah, there ya go…a plot device…see how easy that was?
God, maybe I was so stupid not to go to Naropa and learn
to write for real…or, was I?
Ginsberg finally asked to look at my poetry after our teacher,
Trungpa Rinpoche, had referred to me in one of his lectures
as “resident poet”. I showed him what I had written…I
didn’t have much then, just a few. He skimmed them, paused,
gave me a pat on the shoulder and said: “Be a secret poet.”
and walked away…
I put the revolver back into the drawer and closed it.
****
Ginsberg had been to a seminar with our teacher, Chogyam
Trunpa, in Vermont, which my wife and I also attended. At
one point, Trungpa, Rinpoche was leaving the lecture hall, and
Allen was standing by the door.
“Let’s walk over this poet”, said Trungpa, and he had Ginsberg
lie on the floor and, giggling, he clumsily walked over him.
We gave Allen a ride back to Boston after the seminar. He had
just finished a stint with “The Rolling Thunder Review”,
organized by Bob Dylan…it was around the same time Ginsberg
introduced Joni Mitchell to Chogyam Trungpa. Out of that
meeting came Joni Mitchell’s song: “Refuge of the Road”,
from the album Hejira…Ginsberg asked Trungpa, Rinpoche, if
he would like to meet Bob Dylan. Reportedly, the reply was:
“I couldn’t care less.”
“I couldn’t care less.”
Allen had just published a bunch of poems he wrote while
with “Rolling Thunder” in Rolling Stone Magazine. He
recited a few while we were driving. There was one I
liked a lot, I remember:
“Nobody saves America by sniffing cocaine,
Jiggling your knees blank eyed in the rain…
When it snows in yer nose you catch cold in yer brain.”
We stopped for some food on the way. I was really nervous
sitting next to such a famous person. Allen noticed and
asked me what was going on…I stammered our some
words. He pretty much ignored me after that.
****
It was later than usual, but I didn’t feel like going to bed.
Leaves were swirling in the street outside, and gusts
of wind would occasionally make the tree limbs wave
wildly, as if the trees were performing an amazing
stationary fandango…
I lost every professional title I held, every license,
everything…it felt like I had been stripped naked in
public and ridiculed for having a tiny penis…and then,
beheaded…and then, beat real bad…
It hurt for a while, sure…only about ten years….then,
Mother Nature stepped in lovingly and replaced all my
brain cells….or, maybe just culled the bad ones? I don’t
know the science there….