Lucy Lewis
I dreamed I saw Lucy Lewis last night,alive as you and me.
"Lucy, I hardly knew yuh", I said.
"I came to your dream anyway," said she.
She smiled, but vague. I dreamed I said...
"I see you, Lucy. I see you walking across the San Francisco State commons in the fog with your dark-haired clone Lenore.
"Why, Lucy, you're still wearing your black leotards, you're still wearing your black tights you're still exhaling coolness like rose perfume, you still even have acne!
"You and George Hunter are still producing the Happening in the Gallery Lounge Spring 1964. You choreographing it, George is making space music for it at the Tape Music Center and it sounds like a snowy midnight somewhere in 1840 or 2140 or out in the galaxy far past the farthest comet.
"I'm still holding your robe! What kind of dream is this anyway? I see black lights, strobe lights every kind of night light.
"You are unearthly and George's gold front tooth is glistening wet and insane in the black light midnight.
"Who is carrying your crystal coffin? Why, it's four Rodney Albins all wearing swallowtail coats and stovepipe hats and emanating theatrical gloom! I see. They're marching the dead march for you until Lenore rises from her coffin like a ghost of love lost and dances a sad waltz in her diaphanous gown with the spotlight reflecting off cases filled with basketball trophies from 1948, 1949, 1956 and your well-trained raven and Edgar Allen Poe candles
burning my heart and fingers and then
your raven flew down from the trophy case and quoth 'Nevermore' no more."
But you said,
"Who is George Hunter? Who is Lenore? Why am I in your dream?"
And I knew for certainty you lost your memory in sorrow that will never end in this life.
Because we were standing on the fifth floor of the Hearst Building at Third and Market in San Francisco waiting for the elevator and we were saying goodbye because we would never come here no more and I was grieving too.
I was grieving for my tough newspaperman father who had his office on this very floor where he smoked Chesterfields and Camels and bashed out a daily column and put on his fedora and hiked to the Nugget to interview Lola Albright. And I will never see him no more in this life no matter how much I miss him and Lucy Lewis was come to sorrow with me
because she was the angel of grief.
But she had lost her memory.
Photo by Patrushka
Labels: San Francisco State, Sorrow of Life
posted by Christopher Newton at 12:30 PM
3 Comments:
All I can say is that was pretty intense. I don't understand it, but man, it was something. Very good.
An incredibly beautiful post, Mr. P - I love to read prose when it's written from the heart, and that is precisely what you've done here...and Patrushka's wonderful photo is perfect for this post.
Be well,
Peggi =)
Power of sad words, my brother. The man who laughs is the brother of the man who mourns.
Coincidence? I think not. Death and loss have been more on my mind of late, more than usual. I felt an overwhelming something yesterday morning, a gaping hole in the screen and all the warm desert air finally sneaking in, the angel of grief wafting in on a cold March breath. Just for a second and then the warmth returned.
Selah.
My friend Mike Wozniak, photographer, PBS cameraman, longhaired disciple of Roy Orbison, has gone on ahead to meet your friend Rodney. He left yesterday morning. I'll miss him.
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