—in memory of Jeff Towne
Maybe a glass of water or nothing else outside
feels like hanging out with half of some cantaloupe
with broken sunflowers all over the patio bricks
to be grabbed by sparrows,
not omnivore robins
distracted from the worm hunt,
the slob doves up there
doing something
to put us on the nighttime map for rats.
How much rent was self-publishing David Hickman
in arrears to the most
merciful landlord of poets ever I don’t know,
but they will settle up in Heaven, Jeff and the genii.
I learned some of this freedom
not from a painter or a poet
but from a man
who divided his time
between Ohio
and North Carolina
and ate his grapefruit
on the steps
and wore a faded baseball Hornets hat
with a puffy front
and overalls
and would pitch the rind
at his compost pile
from which sprung
self-starting cherry tomatoes.
David, he said, you can live anywhere
if you get an MBA from Stanford.
My happiest Jeff memory
was seeing him in his blazer
elated leaving the Saturday dance
at the Covenanter Presbyterian church.
Went to the ballgames with him
in Winston-Salem and Burlington,
triple A, double A, low A, all the leagues.
The Clarks and Jeff had their own
folk scene as well. He knew the Grateful Dead,
sure, he knew the Grateful Dead
when they just showed up
and Creedence had pocket-protector pens
and wooden foldable measuring sticks
out west. They shared his love of blue grass,
and nobody else but Jeff would be in the bar
already half-magnetized by early Greensboro.
Self-starting. Porches peeling. Not harassing
poor poets for rent.
He ended one argument
with a painful neighbor
by filling his pickup with chicken shit.
You know the real estate
agents wore hoop skirts one weekend
trying to gentrify old College Hill.
Jim Clark sniffed the air, beard up.
“I guess Jeff is winning this round.”
Those redbuds in bloom
will bloom in Ohio
next month.
He didn’t like to see a checkpoint and guns.
And he saw them a few times, too.
