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Wearing my soft black Australian hat
I walk my friends’ dog down Panchita Street.
I’ve been house-sitting, dog-walking, reading all week
Richard Brautigan, who wrote that the beauty
is all in the saying, who would not tie
the bird of lunacy by a short string
to his toe, but rather would let her fly
in long loopy moves, like a book’s page-turning,
all in the name and the acting-out
of freedom, who shot off his head absolutely,
done in, they say, by the Bitch Fame-Goddess,
broken on her gerbil-treadwheel,
depressed, uncheered, remaining a time
unidentified so de-headed there
and vodka-drowned and Not, in Bolinas,
California, talk about freedom.
I think he would have liked my hat
and surely my friends’ dog Ida, black-and-white
border collie with yearning eyes
who’d herd anything to safety, sheep
or zephyr, doing her dog-work. “Fame
is the spur,” blind Milton wrote, but added
little of use in Bolinas about
“these terrifying honors.”
© 2000, Barry Spacks
Barry Spacks teaches at the University of California at Santa Barbara. He’s published stories, two novels, and seven poetry collections. He has a CD out, A Private Reading, presenting poems from 50 years of work, with two new poetry collections forthcoming in 2004. Visit his Web site, Barryana, for poems, paintings & photos, and Wundercodger.com for a sampling of RealAudio recordings from the CD.
Back to the February 3rd entry > Fame & the lives of the poets
Back to the January 30th entry > It’s Richard Brautigan’s birthday
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