Nick Drake
1948-1974
overdosed on song before he had a chance to live, having played more than most by twenty-four when he declared himself complete, composed, when a young man’s dreams should be just forming.At twenty-six, I was still longing for love, pined to share it hand-in-hand, to feel her pulse; to have children, to admire and be admired. I craved everything from experiment to discovery.
If only his depression had understood veneration as he lay on his childhood bed, music a drooping flower pink petals strewn on the floor of an empty mind, strung-out guitar leaning, ears hushed, a moon climbing.
Happiness
slips through my arms like a ghost made of Jell-O
needs light more intense than the sun, louder than New York, badder than bad
always feels pain somewhere through the nerves, through the knees
is a joke, a suspicious smile, a devil’s grin
is Medici and da Vinci, La Gioconda, is Ginger Rogers, Fred Astaire foxtrotting
is James Dean, the blind fuck, flying along a Texas highway
is Bogie having wrapped up a scene, smoking in his director’s chair
before we knew cigarettes could kill, before uranium, before gunpowder,
before Cain, before the first weed sprouted ugly in the garden
Kurt Steinwand teaches children who have special needs in the Tampa Bay area. He holds an MFA from the University of Tampa and has been published in Artful Dodge, Cincinnati Review, Poet Lore, New Millennium Writings, and previously in Gargoyle. A collection of his poems titled, Poland, about his mother-in-law’s youth during the Nazi and Russian occupations of her country, was published as a chapbook by Finishing Line Press.