the night I phoned Philip

[revolutionrabbit]

the words that write words
the colors that are more green then the word green
I am only the memories that make the poems
years later as I gathered up the courage
to call Philip L in a phone booth

That night, i walked up the small street
on east cliff, a half block away from the
cliff overlooking the Monterey bay,
as you look out to sea, and as you turn to the left
the view of the boardwalk roller coaster rises
its hump back in the salt air of ghostly lights

I had snorted a line of coke to get my wits about me
I did not want to call this mysterious poet, and blow it
my mentor put me up it, I call the crazy surfer writer
my mentor, he is the one that really got me reading
a lot of novels and poetry I would otherwise not have
known about, I was thinking of the first night I met Rik
and he bought me two beers because I was not yet 21
He was standing in front of the little liquor store, we
talked a little and he took me over to his pad
his girl friend and he had a lot of Beat writers
on a shelve and we talked late into the night
about Kerouac and Rimbaud

a year later, Rik said I was now a poet, and as he had
met Philip at a poetry reading in San Francisco, he said
I should call Philip and read him a poem I had written
all this was passing through my mind that cool night
as I plucked up my poet will and reached into my pocket
for a quarter to drop into the phone box and dial the surrealist

As the quarter clanged home I looked through the booth glass
and saw a red glow in the sky south of me, a fire was out there
someone had set an apartment building on fire, I dialed the
number and waited for Philip to answer, it felt like I was
passing through lifetimes, and then I heard his voice
for the first time, I quickly told him that I wanted to read
him a poem, and he let me, stumble over that forgotten piece

when I was done, Philip, was silent for a moment, then he pounced
he began telling me about the Chartres Cathedral, which became
a metaphorical journey into the mind of an american surrealist
he talked like a traveler from another era, he told me about
Andre' Breton, and said that"you cannot know what it was like
to be a surreeeeaaalist, in the 1920's" he dragged out the
reaaaaaaaaaaalist part, his eloquent locutions that
lingered over the scenes he was creating in my mind's eye

He described a city that was like two parts that was coming
together, and writing poetry was like getting through those
two parts before they came together, his silken words flowed
into my ears like jazzy molasses , he said so much in about 20
minuets, but I felt like he had read to me a entire library
of rare manuscripts, I was spell bound, and then it was over
and I did not bother to place the phone back on the hook
just let the black object dangle there, to give the impression
that the conversation never ended, that mellifluous sound
of his deep enunciation sending signals of phraseology
rattling through my whole being with the last shimmer


As I walked back to the pad, I thought I could hear screams
of young girls from the roller coaster behind me, but this was
past summer now, and the strange lumin of Lamantia's words
trailed off into the distant shredded darkness....my head
full of images of Maldoror and a tale of two magic cities...
I would see Philip read live a few months later in North Beach

[dadio]

yes, captured very well and told spot on.

[saw]

a searing moment in a life described with the ample passion it warranted...a cool moment, and a pleasure to read........