Friday, March 7, 2008

Jim Kacian: GYPSY

.
.........................................Went to see the gypsy,
.........................................Stayin’ in a big hotel.
.........................................He smiled when he saw me coming,
.........................................And he said, “Well, well, well.”
.........................................His room was dark and crowded,
.........................................Lights were low and dim.
.........................................“How are you?” he said to me,
.........................................I said it back to him.

between the animus of his angry period and the bookishness of his latter years collecting memoirs there was the chant stage, intoning Blake songs and simple self-composed ditties with nursery rhyme melodies and the most basic chords, breathing exercises really, chi in, chi out, and while an honor to play guitar for him I sat on the stage wondering whither genius, or if you just had to be, twenty years earlier, there . . .

........................................I went down to the lobby
........................................To make a small call out.
........................................A pretty dancing girl was there,
........................................And she began to shout,
.......................................“Go on back to see the gypsy,
........................................He can move you from the rear,
........................................Drive you from your fear,
........................................Bring you through the mirror.
........................................He did it in Las Vegas
........................................And he can do it here.”

and after intermission his greatest hits and now in the audience with friends glugging the jug and testifying, howling to his howl and whorling into Wichita on the vortex of his mind, a kind of jazz arises, antiphon of poem and witness, an outsider’s gospel, the good news sung out loud . . .

.......................................Outside the lights were shining
.......................................On the river of tears,
.......................................I watched them from the distance
.......................................With music in my ears.

and after that the party where we arrive jazzed but quickly dowsed and politely listen to the importance of finding the Way he had found, Miles Davis low in the background . . .

.......................................I went back to see the gypsy,
.......................................It was nearly early dawn.
.......................................The gypsy’s door was open wide
.......................................But the gypsy was gone,
.......................................And that pretty dancing girl,
.......................................She could not be found.
.......................................So I watched that sun come rising
.......................................From that little Minnesota town,
.......................................From that little Minnesota town.


and the next night at the student union coming upon him speaking tenderly to his entourage to avoid the wild fetch of the previous night with its rants and hoots and alcohol, that had once been his way to the Way, and to find peace directly, as though one could eliminate the middleman, and I turned away down the stairs to the dark room where a handful of the unsaved had gathered to blow a little jazz

.......................................daybreak riffs on last night’s tunes


by Jim Kacian
Winchester, Virginia

No comments:

Post a Comment