
[thinking of michael davidson's book on masculinity
while listening to david shapiro on pennsound]
I said to Jasper Johns
I was walking with Allen Ginsberg
I wrote a book with Jacques Derrida
When I was at Columbia
It was one of those wonderful days
I commute a lot but I write while I’m commuting
Joe writes a lot when he commutes too
I dedicate this to the painter Jeremy Rahl
I hardly knew Kenneth then
I had memorized everything in the New York Public Library
I met Kenneth and I loved him
I met Joe Ceravolo and Frank Lima
We won the avant garde book award
We met almost all the time that we could
It was one of the first times that I had an essay in a dream
After that dream essay came this poem by Joe which is of course
Not by Joe but by me
That was a poem given to me by Joe
Kenneth said he did he did win a national award
This is a poem for Joe
I’ll read another poem for Joe
I said when I was off the air
This is a poem I wrote thinking about how often we’d meet
He said, “I want to åfound a school, David.”
I said, “Oh that sounds great, Joe.”
And he said, “Yes, you know.”
I also met Allen Ginsberg a lot and we would walk
I am referring mostly to Charles Ives
Allen Ginsberg walked beside me
That is influenced by Samuel Beckett’s radio play Oh Joe
I was writing a book with Jacques Derrida
I heard a dog crying the day I had to give one seminar on prayer
Rabbi Heschel, the great protestor, his wife is now my cousin by marriage
I wrote this work for Joe Ceravolo, my friend
At Bard College where I taught
I’ve always wanted to do an opera, it wd be very Kochian
I want to read something less lugubrious
I do have a lot of elegies
I’m getting to this age where people want me to write my memoirs
I said to Jasper Johns a year or two ago
When I was at Columbia I once threatened self-destruction to Kenneth Koch
This is a poem I wrote walking around the George Washington Bridge
Frank Lima writes in the subway every morning at six o’clock
My welsh terrier walked around this park a lot
I dedicate this to the painter Jeremy Rall
This was pre-Giuliani
Paul Georges once said
It’s like one of those moments in Wallace Stevens
I want to read something for Rudy Burkhart
Of the great friends that I’ve lost, Kenneth Koch, Joe Ceravolo, Meyer Schapiro
Jacob and I, Jacob his son, has worked with me at Cooper Union
I said to Rudy I said you're the best photographer in America
He left me, he left my son, really, a hundred photographs
He drowned himself like his friend Edmund Denby
He said You’re always giving me gifts, and he said Yes no more gifts
So I wrote this song for Rudy
He loved New York, he also loved nature
I said to him you’re the best nature photographer
Antonioni said I love Monica Vitta but I also love a white line on a street
Rudy really knew how to make a white line on a street as beautiful as a woman, it’s very hard to do
The architect John Hejduk makes a great drawing every day
He’s another great friend and I’ll read a poem for him later
Here’s another poem for Rudy and it’s really a 9-11 poem
I wrote a lot
I was a violinist
I was like a trained monkey and my family was all trained monkeys
My grandfather was one of the great singers of the world
He’s a composer also
He was very important
You can still go to Judaica stores and buy them
Mozart is a standard
Where Glenn Gould is playing
My father was not only a violist but a sculptor
He studied with a student of Rodin
I remember when Kenneth said congratulations on yr dual career
I married an architect
She introduced me to Meyer Schapiro
He defended Jackson Pollock
He wd defend Wolf Kahns’ landscapes
William de Kooning
My great teacher, he really introduced modern art studies at Columbia
He brought de Kooning and Barnett Newman and others TO Columbia
I once sd to Wm de Kooning is it true that Meyer saved yr woman number one?
As Delmore Schwartz once said
Here’s a very funny one for Meyer
His great love Picasso
Meyer lectured on it for a famous five hours
An arrow wd not pierce her vagina
I could not erase one woman
Who is all cunt and spine and democratic bone
You’re sucking me off
Certain people thought that I shouldn’t publish that
But then forgave me
A lot of my life is about architecture
I worked f