by Andrei Codrescu

How do you care for the dead ?
Kaddish.  The Tibetan Book of the Dead.
And then year after year Dia de los Muertos.
All Saints’ Day in New Orleans.
My dead, you are watching, no ?
Hard cars, soft bodies, broken hearts.
Jeffrey and Glenn died when the VW hit a tree
on the Russian River village of Monte Rio
in California in 1977 before the internet.
In our dead lies the secret of greatness.
Jeffrey is a great poet still.  Ted Berrigan.
Jim Carroll.  The real marketing machine
of the cosmos is poetry.  The internet
is the shadow of an egret in the clear lake
of eternity, I mean music.
When Jeffrey died our common friend Hunce Voelcker
insisted on reading for forty days the Coleman translation
of the Tibetan Book of the Dead intro by Carl Jung
while I read the Chogyam Trungpa translation
simultaneously, choosing accuracy over beauty
in guiding the soul of our friend through the Bardo.
Coleman, Trungpa, said, got a color wrong, meaning
that the soul might wonder in the wrong direction
because of the mistranslation, reincarnating as a cockroach,
let’s say, instead of the non-Jeffrey he might have escaped in.
I would rather Jeffrey got through the Bardo and did not
reincarnate.
Hunce thought that being a cockroach is preferable to
nothingness.
Hunce also believed that, beauty is superior to accuracy.
He left his money to the American Poetry Academy for a poetry
prize.
Hunce loved Hart Crane but I liked the Scientific American.

by Andrei Codrescu

I ask of you my cloud:

where are the italics that once served both irony and emphasis ?

Is this a copyediting problem or the demonic glee

of an A.I. who’s writing the books of a dead author

its primal directive to slip unobserved by the reader

by Gerard Malanga

Dear Ted,
I won’t say “Hello” ’cause the year just getting underway
is 2020.  I can just hear you say
“the year of perfect vision.”  Just like you.
The number of years separating us is now: 37!
Neither perfect or far & few between.
Just where we wanna be,
or rather, where I wanna be.
I can’t speak for you, buddy,
though I wish I could,
engaged in one of our dawn patrol raps while heading over to
Ratner’s
as the pigeons & sparrows take flight
across Tompkins Square
or wherever we could rest those intervening moments
the nearest park bench.
Those recollections & reflections.
Where are we going ?
We never did Paris entwined in each other’s marvels
while crossing all those crazy boulevards,
those abrupt cul-de-sacs.
No, we never did the Flore.
Ted, they don’t serve Pepsi.  Will café creme do ? !
It’ll grow on you, believe me.
Get rid of those red flannel shirts!
We’re going shopping at Galeries Lafayette Haussmann.
I’ll make a tailored man outta you.
I’ll make you wonder,
the way Cocteau found the time to wonder, too.
You’ll be happy to learn I’m writing poetry differently
these days, thanks to you.
That’ll make you wonder.
I’m not even chasing tail.  Ha.
I knew I’d get a laugh outta you.

by Gerard Malanga

Hi Sharon,
You’ve never taken a bad picture . . .  have you.
I’ve an excellent eye for the eternal.
I’ve turned corners.
I’ve gone to sleep & woken up in different worlds
& gone to sleep again & not return . . .  & nothing’s changed
& still I can’t seem to find you.
How can that be ?!  1943 ?
The one year we have in common.
Is that the joke ?
To borrow a favorite quote
of Cocteau’s: “Astonish me!”
& you’ve astonished me in retrospect.
I guess you could say, we’ve followed different time zones.
You’re as clear as a sunset walk through a Hamptons beach,
or any beach.  Have your pick.
The twilight’s yet upon us
It’s been 50-some-odd years.  Imagine!
Those would’ve been your years.
If I asked for help along, you surely would.
Roman said it’s in your nature.
Can you reach back as far as 6 or 8 ?
A trip to the zoo.
A pony ride.
A carrousel.
                  How to forget.
Did you wish upon a star & close your eyes ?
Did you have a pet ?
What’s its name ?
Where did you grow up ?
Or back then, had you ?
Is there a part of you yet catching up with you ?
Make me laugh.
Crack me a joke.
Be as goofy as Goofy in the movies.
I know you can do it . . .  but not given the chance.
That’s the secret you’ve been holding back, you’ve kept hidden.
A wholly secret place for cheshire cats.
Save it for when we’re sipping straws
at Café Flore,
our quick glances
& smiling eyes.