Dedicated with great pleasure to
Stephen E Yocum and Ilion Gray,
Don fans both.*
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Created: Mar 26, 2011 10:56 AM

Written the day after a Don McLean
concert at Town Hall, New York City*
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We stood shoulder to shoulder,
for our voice was soon to arrive,
we were friends of Vincent's friend,
a starry night decorator,
chronicler of our youthful days,
who tonight, returned to us,
harmonizor of memories
of long ago,
one more 'last' time

our bodies we pledged to him,
our allegiance we displayed
via our uniforms,
most of us decorated with badges
of our mutuality,
medals of weary grey,
lives worn, patient sat to hear our
youthful anthems and
dormant dreams,
re-populated in our hearts, live,
alive,  resurrected, babes once more

Chevys and levees and then
by God,
we were dancing in the aisles
Like we used to,
one more time,
grassy odors enhanced our
recharged our voices,
we swore fealty to our memories,
said goodbye one last time, again,
to our youth and American Pie

I swear it's true that
this anthem of tribute and attribute
to who we were, makes
tears stream down my cheeks,
a taste mixed, salty
but also, bel canto sweet,
always simultaneously

forty years blink disappear
and I am ****** on
a summer nite in Sixty Nine,
sitting on my porch,
high up in Cleveland Heights,
and "future," was not yet
a ***** word

My red 65 Mustang makes me
a big shot,
I fall in and out love
and/or so many woman's beds,
pillow talk of how we won't be
like our parents cause
we are gonna make over this lousy world
they bequeathed us,  
how we're gonna let the Cuyahoga River
burn off fifty years of industrial waste,
the future will be born anew,
the urban orbs,
we will plan and rebirth,
they will be human beautiful

Earned my summer wages in
a Republic steel warehouse
where this college kid
who then was car-less in Cleveland,
a sin, hippie bicycled to work where
he was mocked & crowned
on his hard hat,
"The Macaroni Kid" -
he had foolishly revealed
to his ha ha,
Fellow American Co-Workers
his student budget dietary staple

but when in he was deep in the belly
of the railroad cars
where they lowered him
to chain together
the custom shaped steel rods,
on their way to be
the skeleton bones for the concrete blocks
to build the Jane Jacob's
neighborhood-killing bland apartment buildings,
that we both so despised,
building blocks of the
USA's cities of anomie

In the railroad cars, this kid
sang Don's songs softly
to himself and was happy

Lamenting the loss of our
carriers of hope to the
trajectory of assassin's bullets,
I cut my hair, shaved my beard,
for the music had indeed died.

Returned to the NYC in '72,
lived on Bleecker Street,
scrounged the streets
of the Village by nite,
a seeker of urban truths,
loose women, and junk "wood"
to burn in the fireplace of
my third floor walkup

working daytime office jobs,
at night, we drank new drinks of
tunes of english imports
and unbelievably, later on, disco

but we never forgot a single word
of our Bye Bye song,
ode to our wonder years

So on a March chill night, 2011,
the now all grown ups
were petitioned to come,
meet at Town Hall,
on the agenda,
a motion of recall
to bid one last
fare thee well
to the glory days before
we crossed the line from
rebels to voting citizens,
from spirited rock n rollers
to grumbling taxpayers,
from kids to parents

So I weep and smile and
do so for all of us
for I will go out
booming, singing, way too loud,
no decorum for this adult,
bid adieu to our best days,
one more good old boy,
now just a good old man
drinking whiskey and rye
smiling, crying, all mixed up,
sad, happy, touched inside
one last time, by the lyrics,
you know 'em well from
from so long ago,
so long, Bye Bye,
My American Pie

In the morning, shower.
But at nite, yo, burn off the fright,
Super-Soaker I become.

As hot as I can stand,
Till my face is a strawberry field.
An hour or two, easing on out
Collected aches and mistakes,
If doable, think on how to make them
un-mistakeable.

Slip slide, music and shampoo,
Tablet baggied, ready armed,
To read and write,
Of and if and about
Us, our poetry,
At the intersecting crossroads
Of life.

Sometimes, I let the water out,
But down don't get out, just sit there,
A sticking stone.

Woman comes by round midnite,
To check if I am
Dead or just well done.
She sees me in the empty bird-word bath.

She doesn't have to say a thing,
Having seen me read your pleads,
She knows, I am drained,
The symbolism, too obvious.

When a man loves a woman

when a man loves a woman
she can do no wrong
at least that's the way
that Percy sings the song

she can make her man feel good
make him feel like a king
when she wraps her arms around him
it makes him want to sing

she is special in the way she walks
a little wiggle in her strut
and of course it really helps
if she has a real nice ****

I'm not saying that's all that counts
because her smile means so much more
specially when he comes home from work
and she meets him at the door

or just when she touches his arm
with her soft and gentle touch
he knows it is the way she says
I love you oh so much

he returns the favors
she is his friend and lover
because he wants the best for her
he hopes it lasts forever

so when a man loves a woman
she can do no wrong
and every night when he says good night
he says it with this song

Gomer LePoet ....

Here I go again
giving another spin
a hotel room
a messy bed
empty bottle of gin
We laugh and lie
I stroke her thighs
and meet the eyes
colored a shade of why
but I must confess
shes caressing a carcass
twisted by his sins
even in such times
in know in my mind
where my soul would rather have been

The wallet where the hidden secrets are to be believed

The boy, a lap climber of some renown,
Age, could have been six or seven,
Had a favorite cliffside to ascend and ride,
When done, down to earth, slide.

Up he would go, on a treasure hunt,
A game to play, called pickpocket,
On a forest of a man of coffee smells and a tickly goatee,
Hamburg born, a man who actually wore
a homburg hat on his head.

First the glass case, the snappy kind,
From the snap, crackle and Pop days.
Inside a cloth, good for emergency cleaning of
Runny noses when it was crying time.

Into the crevices and pockets, he dug and delved,
Jangly keys guaranteed to somehow disappear,
A silver and gold fancy pen and pencil set,
A money clip, folded papers he didn't understand.

But the bonanza, the jackpot was the wallet,
Finding pictures of himself, asking the goatee,
Slyly, smiley, all grown up likely, kiddingly
Who's that?

Between the pictures of him and his sisters,
Was a weird discovery, five twenty dollar bills.
His money was in a clip, so these twenties
Had no earthly purpose being there.

There is nothing more unstoppable than the curiosity
Of children under the age of ten,
So a grand inquisition of nagging began,
Centering on the age old torture tool,
Why?

Goatee said someday you will see men,
Lying on the street, some with hands outstretched,
Some, hands beneath, hidden neath their legs.  
They won't smell as good as you,
They may even be a tiny bit *****,
with no bathtub to play in.
When you should see such a man,
If he asks or not, our job is to give him
One of those special notes.
When its your turn to have wallet,
You will understand better.

Dissatisfied was the explorer,
The words did not fully explain,
Why this money was different from all others?
Upon these five bills, were hand written bold
Three words, which he could read.

God Bless You!

Goatee smiled and hugged me that hug,
Where you can't breathe and its a-ok,
But please be quiet now young one...

This poem a total fantasy.

Someday Izzy and Alex will be forward scouts,
Investigators and detectives with prying frying fingertips.

If they get to Poppy's wallet,
Between the pictures of them and the West Coast team,
There just maybe, five folded twenties,
Magic marker signed, but not by a Treasury official,
With words of a similar ilk.

If they should inquire what's the point,
Poppy might answer them with one particular
Poem.