International PEN Congress Blues
1.
The Frenchman speaks of tortured Albanians
The room full of PEN members listen quietly
Only a few understand
But all applaud
Behind him
Visible through the glass door
A crow flies from the tree
In the distant park
Unknowing of prisons
Never having joined
A freedom-to-fly committee.
2.
Baldheaded men
Coquettish, overdressed women
With wrongly chiseled features
Seeking a reason to be
In "rapid action networks"
Rushing to the aid of "urgent cases"--
How many will go home to love tonight?
And how many to a prison without bars
For which no committee exists,
No place to appeal their fate?
3.
48 writers who need to be adopted--
I've been waiting all my life for that.
Is there someone I can write to
In the London Center?
4.
A rainbow on the page
From the crystal chandelier above
Like God's grace upon the just
In the Hilton Hotel.
Names on paper
Prisoners adopted and unadopted--
We are called upon to show more kindness.
Can you imagine the pain and the sweat and the festering
In the flesh of those
Whose lives we speak of
With such civilized decorum?
5.
Mexico has gotten better
They only kill writers who are "drug dealers"
It sounds like an efficient system
Soon they'll have nothing to read
That would upset even a child
And be completely drug-free besides.
No one knows who's doing the killing
Local strongmen, regional governors
"A fractured pattern"--
A bullet in the head ahead of time is easier
Than getting rid of votes already cast.
"They left his Rolex watch on his hand--
The police said it was a common crime."
The Indians don't speak Spanish at all.
The journalists who go to interview them
Are very brave men indeed
And often don't come back.
6.
The heavy blonde
With thick lips
And fleshy black-stockinged legs
Is keeping her thoughts to herself
As she distracts half the room.
7.
The budget is 35,000 pounds short
The only one who's sure of getting paid
Is Salmon Rushdie--for another year at least--
Who never sang a song as pretty
As the Vienna Boys' Choir
Giving us Mozart this morning
But no one really heard him anyway
There's too much hatred,
A kind of deafness, in this world
And harmony always a miracle
The Ford Foundation may not fund
But lack of it certainly nothing
To kill or be killed for.
For John--Now That He Is No More
in memoriam John Montgomery (1919-1992)
Good man, John, merry old Marin climber
took me by surprise with his
frontal assault on my ego
took my brain apart and
stored it in his private library
acted like he cared for nothing
and cared about us all
but couldn't show it
without a sneer or sly laugh
secret letter writer on midnight typewriter
spinning spider web of confidantes
throughout the world
tied together with the heart
of his friend Jack Kerouac
house musty with old books
always in need of companions
championing every lost cause
working for the post office and
spending half his earnings on postage
took literature seriously
never forgot the needy
insisted on a righteous country
or else he wanted no part
of the America that called him crazy
took pride in shocking the bourgeoisie
felt let down when no one called
will always be remembered
as the man you could talk to
when no one else was listening
by this one poet
he thought wasn't so bad
meaning me
now that he's no longer here
it's up to us to speak
as he did
and that means
tell the truth
for if we do
he'll live on in our heads
as he does now in our hearts
Adios, friend!
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Nicosia is also well-known for his own poetry and fiction, much of which has been published in literary magazines. He frequently reads this material in public. He published a collection of his poetry, Lunatics, Lovers, Poets, Vets & Bargirls with Host Publications in Austin, Texas, in 1991, and has a new collection called Love, California Style forthcoming in 2001 from Buchenroth Publishing. He is also the author of a nonfiction novel about the tragic suicide of his friend Richard Raff, called Bughouse Blues.
| Born November 18, 1949, in Berwyn, Illinois, just outside Chicago, Gerald Nicosia received a B.A. (1971) and an M.A. (1973) in English and American Literature, with Highest Distinction in English, from the University of Illinois in Chicago. In the late 1970's, Mr. Nicosia traveled the United States and Canada, interviewing over 300 people who knew Jack Kerouac. His biography of Kerouac, Memory Babe (Grove Press, 1983), earned the Distinguished Young Writer Award from the National Society of Arts and Letters while still a work-in-progress in 1978. Upon publication, it garnered over 200 reviews worldwide, and has generally been recognized as the definitive book on Kerouac’s life and work. It has been translated into French, Spanish, and Czech, and is currently in print in a revised U.S. edition from the University of California Press.
• more info at geraldnicosia.com
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Gerald Nicosia