Obit A.G.

Well, CNN got it all wrong

(they could not even get the year

you sprung forth right). It was necessary to watch

our foreign neighbours in order to get the truth.

I had no choice but to surf

the screens to pin down your life.

And yes, you had your disturbances,

Four-eyed and bold in the

secret societies of your pen

and muse, who taught you your sex and verse

and consumed your hair.

And there was that omnipotent howl along

negro streets. You were taking

a fix on life, the peel of conformity

blasted off the fruit which blossomed forth over

angelheads who played with chants –

Om Ah Hum again and again.

It was good to know that the song did run into

a sun, taking a wrinkled form. It stayed

deep within the softness of the belly of

America. You cursed and drank and screwed without

the olden golden fears that burnt a nation into charcoal

Sketches and unleavened desire.

They called it obscene as you lead the bacchae

and youth followed, avoiding Moloch and

teasing you with eyelines and headlines.

The absolute emptiness of their lives came down

in the rain and ash of the fall of america.

And soon the children of your flower power grew

restless, faced realities, but still they

clutched the books and beads, knowing the thrill

of it being unpasteurized, caffeinated and

virtually spotted, signaling out of the academia

hope and its forthcoming resurrection.

How was it in the negro streets all decked out

with city lights and affairs with B and K and

F under the gaveling government who wanted

more consumption as they fed their secret hungers

in covert operations and the jingoism of war?

I can no longer expect the instant replay without

forgetting your space and the hungry gap,

the trim home of your spectacles, books and Buddha.

If all of these images could only be fastened on

the kite strings of your heart (broken, as I heard it) as

the Great Pooh Bear in the sky takes you up by a stuffed finger,

I could believe that you were going to muse

with the masters, Whitman as your everlasting

hostess, and teach them about the poet’s

professionalism and your saintly trips to

the boys of Tangiers and Morocco in the missing East.

I received a call from a friend who had not heard

of your passing. The Central Neurosis Network

said that you were surrounded by yours as the

cells under and below formed new lives and

repeated themselves in your full view. I don’t

know how many new Buddhas we have left. I can’t

say how soon a new beat will pulse with the

everlasting instantaneousness that will bear the

new texts. I don’t know where the rhyme will fall

and when it will lift up its pen to leave.

I only remember the phone call

and the repeated cycle of the voice

ash-dull and grey with disturbed tears:

“No, no, no…where does this leave us?”

I reply: “We can only end the line here. The first warrior

has taken

flight.”

*

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You can find more poems, stories, and articles by Kendall Defoe on my Vocal profile. I complain, argue, provoke and create...just like everybody else.

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