Richie And The Dark Days

It's times like these, the dark days, that I think about Richie. He's gone now, and I still miss him. But I remember the dark days way back when, and how he always gave us comfort.

Especially today, April 4th. Fifty-two years ago today they blew away Dr. King. It was the second day in my life for which I remember every second. The first had happened five years earlier, when President Kennedy bought it in Dallas. He was the only president I ever met and shook hands with, in Battery Park a few months before he died. He came there to dedicate the Navy monument to the sailors who died in World War II. He pulled up on the Esplanade in the same open-top limousine in which he would later die in Dallas, got out with just one Secret Service man and waded into the crowd shaking hands.

I was fourteen years old. I'd never shaken a president's hand, before or since.

But five years later, April 4, 1968. I was at a hockey playoff game in Madison Square Garden watching the Rangers trying for the Stanley Cup. The game ended, I don't remember who won, and we walked out into Penn Plaza and saw the vendors waving newspapers with Dr. King's photo on the front page, and the headline in Second Coming type (if you know newspapers you know that's the biggest font they have, reserved for when Jesus returns.)KING DEAD!

Richie (Havens) showed up at my college a few days later. He was friends with the woman who ran our student center. He hugged us all and said, "It's gonna be alright. We're gonna be alright."

God, we so needed to hear that.

I think of all the times since when he did that for us.

Like a few months later, when Bobbie Kennedy was killed in Los Angeles.

Like the Vietnam War.

Like Desert Storm.

Like September 11th....

The last time I saw Richie alive was at Highline Ballroom. His brother came to the show and sat with Jane and me. It was a great night.

The next time I saw him was at his wake, at City Winery. All us old hippies drank too much and sang all his songs.

Peace to you, Richie. Peace to you John, and Martin, and Bobbie

I hope someone lives long enough to wish peace to us.

You Don't Deserve Any Better

You wished I would never mention your name, didn't you?

Well I didn't, and I won't.

That's for us to know.

But damn, I miss you.

You know what came between us. I wanna watch you, 'til I see a tear in your eye. 'Til then, I won't believe a word about you. After....?

Rain Song

Spring wind blowing, Spring rain falling, couple weeks early,but not too far behind. Gods look the other way, you don't really care, what matters is what happens,what happens is what matters.

Spring wind blowing, turn your collar up, tighten your scarf, that's what I would do. Spring rain falling, your kisses warm 'round my neck, you knitted it just for me, didn't you?

Or did I forget your name? Did I care where your shovel hit me? Break my ribs, don't matter. I'll be dead, then it's your problem.

So many circles round you. So many sandbars, between here and home. So many times....

Night Wind

There was a birthday this week. Not mine, that's on almost the other side of the year. It was the birthday of the first girl I was in love with.

Yeah, we all say that. But I mean truly, madly, desperately, achingly, ecstatically in love. The kind of love where you wake up in the morning and you don't want to open your eyes, 'cos in the dreamworld she left her picture there, behind your eyelids.

The kind of love where you dreaded the start of school in the fall 'cos you couldn't spend every sunny day together from morning til night.

The kind of love where you would trade the whole day for five minutes together.

Her name was Jill, and she lived on the edge of Brownsville in the late sixties, not exactly a safe place. Those were high-strung times.

I remember the night I met her. I went to a party at a friend's house in early winter, and I walked into the bedroom to toss my coat on the bed. This girl was sitting there, brunette, tall, hair in a ponytail, blue eyes wide. I looked at her and said, "Hey, what did you smoke tonight?" She looked at me and said, earnestly, "An entire Marlboro!"

Thought to myself, I HAVE to know this girl!

Couple weeks later, I took her to the Fillmore, to see Iron Butterfly, backed by an unkown band calling themselves Led Zeppelin. That was the night I fell in love for the first time.

Tonight I'm thinking of all the nights that followed, And all the days.

Thinking how we did all the Brooklyn things. Like lie in the sand on Manhattan Beach watching the sunset and the stars rise.

And the day you wore your first  two-piece, and you were so scared.

And the first night we went to dinner on Emmons Avenue, Randazzo's Seafood, while the Saturday night parade roared by.

But I remember the  other times too. 

Like sitting on the bluffs over Lake Ontario.

Like hitch-hiking on a two-lane blacktop in New Hampshire.

Like playing with a lion cub in Manitoba.

Like swimming in the lagoon in Montreal.

Now it's fifty-something years later. And the greyness is over our shoulders and gaining on us. And I've not seen you in forever.

All my love, J.

Second Time Tonight?

The next time I die I want to land in one of those monasteries, where the mummified bodies of monks and saints line the hallways grinning with some secret knowledge.

I can be happy there til the end of time, hanging on my hook in my robe, laughing with my friends at the idea that we might still be here....

And when it's all over,we'll laugh all the louder! Hear our broken bones rattle while we dance!

I Fell For You That Night

You know I've always been a little bit in love with you, don't you? Like maybe two and a half percent? Any more than that could be way too dangerous!

Do you remember when it started? I'm not sure. It might have been that night in the railroad station, waiting for the train under the summer stars after the show. Or it might have been that night we swam in the Aegean, a thousand years before Jesus was even a gleam in his daddy's eye.

I remember watching you that night, when you dropped your white linen dress on the soft sand. You laughed when you took the laurel crown from your brow and tossed it like a frisbee onto the cold forbidding rocks, then dived into the surf. You looked so brave!

Or maybe it hasn't happened yet? Maybe it's some day in the next milennium, when the sky is brighter and we're finally safe?

Either way, it'll turn out alright. Because how else could it turn out, if it's meant to be?

Fog

I saw you standing on the corner, backlit in the cold white fog. Angel in the mist, cold vapor crawling over you. I wished I could see your face.

But your face doesn't matter, it's your heart that counts. Do you love me like I hope you do? Or are you just another mummy drying in the desert sun? And did we make love on top of the pyramid, while the Aztec priests waited with their knives?

Their blades struck only the hot sandstone walls, we were already so far gone! See you next time around, but count the scars and keep track.

Amen

Next Time Around

Steel wheels rolling round that curve,

Foot steps echo on the tiles.

Your camera don't know how to blink,

so you miss it when heaven rolls by.

I wish I could take you down there, babe,

to hear your boots echo on the platform.

Wish I could spin you,

waltz you and twirl you,

But we were both already ghosts.

And the platform is empty,

but you and I are hiding

on the stairway 

where no one can see us.

And  your long white skirt billows,

and the ghost light is glinting

on the lightning flash

deep in your eyes.

And the sun is rising,

while the light is melting,

and the glass is burning 

in the sky light. 

In the skylight.

Good morning.